Traumafessions :: Reader Chris Nigro on Curse of Bigfoot

Greetings, Unk and Aunt.

I have one major childhood trauma that I will never forget involving something I saw on the T.V. It was during the 1970s, before we imagined that anything like VCRs or DVDs awaited us in the future, and we were at the complete, horrid mercy of the networks to see any movie, and if we missed it then, it may have been a year or longer before we had the opportunity to see whatever neat little offering we missed again.

Anyway, I have been a fan of horror cinema for as long as I can remember, and also the fan of supposed real life monsters like Bigfoot. So I was thrilled when I checked the TV GUIDE and found out that a movie called CURSE OF BIGFOOT was going to be aired on T.V. that afternoon. This weird and somewhat demented little gem of a film that attempts to cash in on a real-life legend is more than worth the effort of finding on video for aficionados of the more bizarre horror films. The fun–and the major trauma–started (I kid you not) in the prologue before the opening credits!

I remember expecting this movie to do the usual and wait until the second half of the film to show a clear shot of the titular monster, but this particular prologue was an exception to this often tantalizing rule that ended up making me feel unhappy rather than thrilled. Not only did this opening sequence feature a genuinely creepy voice-over by some invisible narrator describing this alleged prehistoric hominid horror in a way that truly chilled my bones (he said the creature was "more beast than man…", or something like that), but within just several seconds we are suddenly treated to a long shot of the full creature, where the beast-man quickly proceeds to walk straight up to the camera so that we get a very uncomfortable–and bone-chilling–close-up shot of its truly hideous face!

Its wicked scream as it approached the camera was almost as bad as its madness-inducing countenance. And if that wasn't enough, immediately afterwards we saw a totally unnecessary but no less horrifying scene of the creature's forearm and hand up against a huge rock or some sort of solid object with pools of blood pouring down from it.

That was just too much for me, and I quickly ran in the kitchen where a few adult family members were hanging out. That opening sequence of a memorable little B-film from the 1960s provided me with a major childhood trauma, and it did so in what amounted to less than two minutes of screen time in the prologue sequence, no less. Is that a new record for a film-induced trauma?

–Chris Nigro

UNK SEZ: Thanks Chris, for the great traumafession! Maybe you should count your blessings that you dropped out of CURSE OF BIGFOOT when you did because after that opening, it's all down hill from there! In fact, the second half of the movie, if I recall correctly, recycles footage from an earlier film entitled TEENAGERS BATTLE THE THING (1958). That alone wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that T.B.T.T. has nothing to do with our pal Bigfoot at all and instead involves an ancient ape mummy!

Also Chris thanks for informing us about your two traum-tastic websites!

Kids, check out all the coolness that Chris has been up to; one of his websites is a personal homage to Godzilla called THE GODZILLA SAGA, and the other is called THE WARRENVERSE. It concerns those awesome old magazines like EERIE and CREEPY and you can find that one HERE. Make sure you visit both!