Cry Wilderness

I saw this film years ago when it came to theaters for an extremely limited release. I remember the film so well because I won a door prize the day I viewed it. I watched the film with a theater full of young kids and even the kids didn't like it. Many slept and others just shook their young heads in disbelief. How could such a poor film be produced.

I place this movie in my personal category of movies that cross into an area of unusually poor film-making, and in doing so, leave you unable to pull yourself away. Even telling friends, you have to see this movie because it is SO bad. I have to tell myself that this is the goal of those who make movies like this. I just can't honestly accept that someone wrote this, thought it was good, and was able to make the movie, with the honest intention of having it be good. So, if you are considering watching this movie, chances are it's because you've found it at a library, (I've never seen it in any video store), but if you have made the unfortunate decision to pay money to rent, or, heaven forbid, buy it, I suggest a healthy dose of your preferred inebriant and low expectations. REALLY low expectations.

Cry Wilderness (1987)

* (out of 4)

Paul (Eric Foster) is a young student who runs away from his school after Bigfoot tells him that his forest ranger father is in trouble. You see, the previous summer Paul and Bigfoot became friends but no one believes the kid. Now the kid is reunited with his father who is tracking down a dangerous tiger but there are bigger issues going on.

CRY WILDERNESS is a pretty darn bad movie but it's thankfully campy and silly enough to where you can get some entertainment out of it. The film comes from director Jay Schlossberg-Cohen whose only other credit was a segment he did for the even more awful NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR. This film here is certainly among the worst Bigfoot movies that you're going to see as everything they were going for just fails.

This was obviously meant to be a heart-warming tale of a boy and his friend ala something like E.T. but this film fails on pretty much all levels. The biggest problem is that there's really no connection between the viewers and the characters. All of the characters are pretty much one-note and even worse is the fact that the film just never builds up the relationships between them. We're supposed to care for this young boy and his father but we don't. There's supposed to be a tender moment between Bigfoot and the boy but it's silly more than anything else.

I will say that the film does offer up some decent performances but that's just about it. There's a lot of footage of various wildlife animals that is probably the most entertaining thing going on. It's really too bad that the film itself wasn't better or at least they could have used Bigfoot in more of the scenes. As it stands, CRY WILDERNESS will appeal to fans of bad movies but that's about it.

Cry Wilderness is the kind of film that gets made because some writer / director had an idea that nobody else believed in (with good reason). Instead of waiting for a better idea, the script gets filmed on a shoestring budget. The minimal plot gets heavily padded by stock wilderness footage, which makes the constant changes in terrain (forest, scrubland, mountain) and season (snowy winter in one scene, bright greens of summer in the next) obvious to a bright three year old. Then there is the acting, which makes me wonder if the next door neighbor's kid and a few drinking buddies were assembled to round out the minimal cast. Then there is the Bigfoot costume, which looks like somebody took a set of hair clippers to a Chewbacca halloween costume and called it a day. Do not attempt to watch this without the cast of MST3K. Given a choice between watching this film and viewing your second cousin's home movies of a trip they took to Yellowstone back in 1978, pick the latter.

From out of focus shots, to shots you couldn't connect with Legos, to acting so wooden you look for termites 🐜... This is BORING, plot less, and totally disjointed, with inadvertent time travel as the film constantly jumps from fall to winter (snow ❄ in one shot, gone in the next). A complete waste from start (at the world's worst museum) to finish (at a raccoon filled cabin) THIS is cinematic torture!