Last Updated on April 12, 2022, 7:50 PM | Published: April 12, 2022
Sometimes you see a film that is so much better than it has any right or reason to be.
In the autumn of 2020, presumably sick of sheltering in place and itching to film something safely outdoors with just a small group of actors, a band of local moviemakers, led by director/writer Nick Sanford and editor/writer Andrew McDonald, set out to the woods with nothing but a dream.
A dream of a really stupid Bigfoot movie.
That’s not me editorializing. That’s how Sanford and McDonald’s new film “Elusive” bills itself. Even the movie’s official website is stupidbigfootmovie.com.
And yes, the initial premise alone is wonderfully goofy and immediately ridiculous: A self-proclaimed cryptozoologist arrives in the (fictional) town of Lofa, Oklahoma to track down the Sasquatch, enlisting the help of a young, cocky documentary filmmaker with his own agenda.
What follows is a raunchy, obtuse, and sometimes insane comedy, deeply hilarious and consistently unexpected.
And that could have been it. Sanford, McDonald, and crew could have just made a weird, wild, legitimately funny little fake documentary about a loser’s search for the Bigfoot, and it would have been good fun.
What makes “Elusive” shockingly great is that they decided to pull the rug out from under the audience and actually make it about something.
Settling into the film, I started wondering quickly how they were going to stretch out the joke for a full 90 minutes, and the answer, of course, is that they don’t even try. Instead, what begins as just that “stupid Bigfoot movie” spends its entire second half throwing the story, and its characters, for loop after loop, keeping the premise on its toes and offering revelations, twists, and more than a few genuinely emotional and heartfelt moments.
The end result is so much more than the dumb, dirty, ridiculous mockumentary you might expect going in. It’s a surprising and effective look at insecurity, shame, responsibility, and all the lies, from the innocuous to the mythical, that we tell ourselves, and each other, to make sense of the world.
Especially as parents.
Of course, none of that is possible without the kind of actors that can pull it off.
For the two co-leads, monster hunter Wayne Nicholson and aspiring filmmaking legend Jimmy “Mad Dog” Hansen, Sanford turned, brilliantly, to the OKC comedy scene.
It’s been said that if you can do comedy, then you can nail drama. The jury’s out on whether that’s always actually true, but the casting here would make for a pretty solid argument.
Stand-up comedian (and veteran of a handful of local auteur Mickey Reece’s films) Alex Sanchez digs into the character of Jimmy with all the manic, egotistical energy he can muster, great for a character that may actually be a film-obsessed pathological liar, but his moments of fear or earnestness come across remarkably well, and (as the cameraman in the film-within-the-film) he has the difficult job of selling much of his dialogue from off-screen.
But the entire movie really belongs to OKC comedy mainstay BradChad Porter as the not-as-mysterious-as-he-wants-to-be Wayne Nicholson.
Porter’s entire role is a tightrope walk. He has to be goofy but not too goofy, pathetic but not too pathetic, and he has to pivot on a dime between hilarious and sadly sympathetic, often all in the same scene. It’s no easy task, and he pulls it all off believably and, most importantly, watchably.
Reece himself also co-stars in a sadly small role, offering line after line of sidesplitting delivery as one half of a militant redneck duo committed to killing the Sasquatch. Anyone that’s seen Reece’s videos for OKC’s George’s Liquors knows all about the director’s comedy chops.
The truth is that it would be easy to love “Elusive” just based on it being a locally produced little film with some great local talent and a bunch of wacky, funny gags, and I’ll admit that’s exactly what I expected from it, but I promise you, it really is a fantastic and surprising piece of work.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely still goofy and raunchy and completely ridiculous, but it also has a giant, Bigfoot-sized heart.
“Elusive” is available now for rent or purchase on Vimeo On Demand with upcoming screenings in Bartlesville and Tulsa.
For more information, and to check out the trailer, visit stupidbigfootmovie.com
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
