Cry Wilderness

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.

Upfront, I feel I need to say that I had never seen Cry Wilderness until it appeared in one of episodes of new MST3K. Regardless, I will be as objective as possible. I'm not one of those who thinks a movie is necessarily bad for appearing on MST3K. Some of the films on the show are actually very good and enjoyable on their own. Unfortunately, Cry Wilderness isn't one of them.

In short, Cry Wilderness is a mess of a movie. What little plot there is concerns an annoying little boy who receives a warning from Bigfoot that his father is in danger. This thin thread of a plot doesn't really hold the film together, however. The movie consists of a series of unrelated scenes haphazardly put together. The acting ranges from bad to downright atrocious. Continuity is non- existent. Characters go from one location to a completely different location in seconds. The mystical hokum of the old Native American and his band of animals is ridiculously presented. And Bigfoot is a disaster. The costume isn't even complete. On the positive side, there are some nice animal-in- nature type shots, but that's about it. Overall, a lowly 2/10 from me.

A Bigfoot-type creature befriends Paul, a young student. His father is a park ranger trying to capture an escaped tiger. Everyone in town is on edge and wants the tiger killed. David tries to keep Bigfoot a secret.

Maybe 3 is a little high to rate this film, but I don't feel right giving it a 1 or 2. Unlike some truly awful messes, it never suffers from the biggest sin a movie can make: boredom. The nonsense of the plot and background actually sort of helps. Coherent? No. But all the more entertaining.

What was most interesting to find out is that a couple of the actors involved have actually appeared in real, very successful films. How they were tricked into this (beyond the easy paycheck) is really beyond me.

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.

It's nearly impossible to put into words how awful this movie truly is. The acting and dubbing is beyond laughable, it has the worst stock footage ever and barely has anything resembling a plot. The entire world in the film seems to operate without logic or reason. Somehow the kid, Paul, makes his way into the middle of the Sierra Nevada mountains after running away from boarding school because Bigfoot told him his dad was in danger. Paul is then picked up by a trucker who doesn't seem at all puzzled that a 10 year old is out there. Paul then proceeds to magically find his forest ranger dad walking around in the middle of the woods despite having no possible way of knowing where he would be, and his dad barely questions it. And that's just in the first ten minutes. The whole movie plays out like there wasn't even a script and instead the director made it up day to day. I'd recommend watching the MST3K version of this so there isn't any lasting mental scarring from the absolute mess assaulting the senses. The two people rating this movie an 8/10 and 7/10 either must've been involved in the production or actually had their sanity affected by this turd, because literally nothing in this movie is redeemable, save some nice shots of the California wilderness, and that's why it gets one star. This movie isn't healthy for children and other living things.