I remember "Sasqua" very well, though I had not seen the film in many years. It was a cool fall night in Dracut when my father noticed a lot of lights in the back of the town library. He called my brother and I to go out with him and check it out, and low and behold we walked right onto a movie set. A local producer was filming a low budget horror flick in our area--and of all the place to film he was within walking distance from my backyard! "Sasqua" was released in 1975, but this filming was probably a good year or two before the release date. I got to meet some of the actors (smaller, supporting roles) and Scot himself. I ever got to be in on a blink and you miss me cameo. It was a turning point in my life, since then I've really been interested in film production, and twenty some odd years later I actually made my own low budget horror movie, a direct to video never to be seen tale of terror that was probably a product of my childhood encounter with a movie crew.
But back to "Sasqua." I finally saw the film again a few days ago. To be honest it was actually better than I remembered, although from what I understand the film has about twenty minutes of footage and probably seen some reediting. Regardless the concept is still a good one. A group of hippies are forming a commune in town, and are quickly viewed as creeps by the towns people. The film was made in the early seventies, so this negative stereotype was probably pretty accurate. Evidently the hippie arrival has infringed on the turf of a group of Sasquatches, and before you know it they are killing both hippies and town folk alike. The town naturally blames on the hippies and sets the police after them. In the end the challenge is will the town and the hippies co exist and turn their attention on the sasquatch problem, or will hate and prejudice prevail? Prejudice is a big theme is "Sasqua." A major conflict in the movie is racial intolerance, where one particular member of the hippies doesn't like the black members of the commune, and one particular member of the black group doesn't like the white guys. Intolerance really is the core theme of the film, which is kind of reminiscent of George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," which also featured a racist subplot.
The acting in "Sasqua" is hit or miss. The lead actors--the ones with actual experience--is fairly decent. A lot of the other actors were pretty terrible. The dialog is decent at times, cringe worthy at others, but the pacing is fairly good and the sasquatch outfit not shabby at all. The film has virtually no gore effects, which is probably a good idea since the budget likely wouldn't have allowed for that.
In hindsight, having worked a bit in film and video myself through the years, I think Scot made some good decisions in this movie. I kind of learned the hard way to avoid spending cash on great special effects that can not be maintained throughout the movie. I had a professional make up guy do the effects for my monster, and while he looked great for two or three scenes, I never got the guy back to finish the job. I ended up with lots of talk and little action. Scot kept things simple and consistent and ended up with a better movie as a result.
It is kind of a shame this film was never professionally released on DVD. It reminds me a lot of the old "Creature Feature" films that used to play on local TV on Saturday afternoons. It is not a great film, but I've seen many movies on DVD that are legitimately much worst than "Sasqua."
