Sasqua

I found this web site recently. I was involved in the production of this film. I have background information and copies (duplicates of duplicates) of the film. I was the "still photographer" for the movie, a featured player (actor with lines), and a production assistant. I am familiar with the location shooting and local people involved in the filming of the movie. I would love to obtain an original copy, DVD or crisp copy for my archive. A local re-showing would be welcome by the community. People still remember the movie and several of the local talent are still around. Massachusetts is still a great place to make movies.

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."

"Sasqua" is practically the embodiment of the concept of 'bare bones filmmaking'. Virtually a no-budget production, made by people with little to no film-experience. Some exploitation or genre films made this way, went on to later become cult classics. But that's not the story of "Sasqua". The film got lost into obscurity shortly after its release. Even if "Sasqua" is not the 'forgotten masterpiece' amongst the 70's Bigfoot movies we all hoped for, it did not deserve this faith. So sometimes, even faith can use a helping hand. The hand of a Humanoid, for instance. And so it happened. After 3 decades, mainly thanks the crusade of one single devoted horror fan, not only a copy of the movie surfaced again, but also - with the help & participation of some of the film's principal crew members - the whole story behind the making of "Sasqua" had a chance to be re-told.

The synopsis has already been mentioned on these pages. I'll add some other thoughts that occurred to me while watching a screener of "Sasqua". One thing I am fairly convinced of, is that the version both me, Coventry & Humanoid watched, is only a (very) rough cut of the film. A work-print, I'm sure. Transferred to tape and now digitized. Some brief shots feature fragments of time codes. And according to other bits of info I've gathered left & right, there should exist more footage that's not featured in this version of the film (like the alleged flashbacks for some of the characters). Did Channon Scot never get around to shooting them, or are they part of a finished (theatrical) cut of the film? Even with the new attention the film has now received, clarifying a lot of the mystery surrounding this production, "Sasqua" has not revealed all its secrets yet.

Just a little bit about the actual film then... It's kind of hard to call "Sasqua" a 'real' horror film. The woods have their desolate atmosphere and there are Sasquatch creatures running around in it. A few characters die. A little bit of blood. But that's as far as the horror goes. At no point the film manages to build up tension. The Sasquatch beasts - even though we see enough of them, but never any facial closeups - never manage to be truly scary. The film is cut together with scenes & sequences in such a way that, as a whole, the movie fails to portray the Sasquatch horde as the true menace they should be. The script tries to play out an angle where, from the towners point of view, the hippies are to blame for the killings. But the hippies & the sheriff figure out about the existence of the Bigfoots soon enough. Why & how they know this? It's never really explained. It seems just a normal thing to them and unfortunately it also takes away a lot of the mystery surrounding these mythical beings, roaming the woods. Naturally, the hippie community & the local law enforcers make the logical decision that these creatures must be stopped. But I must advise you to not get your hopes up about this. The ending of the film is cool, in a very 'vintage' way, but the conclusions is also very underwhelming.

Still, "Sasqua" does have other merits. Channon & his crew actually tried to make a serious film here. While the film has no real pace to speak of and the timing of events is a bit off (most of the time), there's this hunting sequence in the middle of the film. The hunting party feels like a sudden adrenaline boost coming out of nowhere, especially because of the way it's edited together. A Sasquatch attacks, things happen fast and the death of some hunters comes as a hard-hitting surprise. Furthermore, the movie has a few stand-alone shots featuring (parts of) a Sasquatch that are pretty downright imaginative. "Sasqua" also doesn't incorporate any silly attempts at humor and even some racial & social issues are touched upon in the screenplay. This is very commendable - and also rather uncommon - in a supposedly exploitational genre outing about cannibalistic Sasquatch creatures, wouldn't you agree? The film doesn't even feature gratuitous gore, nudity or sleaze. Another respectable choice the filmmakers made, so it seems.

Let's wrap things up rating-wise, shall we? Essentially, "Sasqua" is just a tad bit too inept work of cinema to give it a pass. But Channon Scot made a personal dream come true. A dream which a lot of people might have at one point in their lives, but never set out to get it accomplished: Independently write and direct a first full feature film. He managed to gather enough like-minded people, all working together, devoted to getting this film made. And it turned out an honest subgenre effort. A whole extra star granted, with love & appreciation.

I grew up across the street from one of the film sites. My sisters, myself and the neighborhood kids were all paid a quarter to be quiet while filming took place. My mailbox was also featured in this film. I would love to find a copy of it!

First and foremost I wish to express my gratitude and deepest respect to a certain IMDb member and horror board buddy who went on a personal crusade to bring this allegedly lost 70's film out of oblivion and succeeded in it as well! Regardless of how good or bad the actual movie is, this man's unconditional devotion and perseverance is highly admirable to say the least. Thanks to him, a mate and myself were amongst the first people in over 30 years to check this film out. Hopefully other like-minded fanatics of the genre will follow. Respect, Mr. HumanoidOfFlesh!

Then for the film itself. "Sasqua" surely isn't a masterpiece, but then again, what do you expect from a zero-budgeted amateur production that went missing for over three decades? "Sasqua" is a typical product that ensued from the extremely popular 70's Bigfoot horror-hype. Movies about Bigfoot, Sasquatch, the Yeti and the Abominable Snowman have existed since the fifties, but it was the unexpected mega-success of "The Legend of Boggy Creek" at the American drive-in theaters that suddenly caused a massive overload of cheap and sleazy exploitation movies about hairy monsters running amok in remote areas. "Sasqua" fits perfectly amidst all the other contemporary Bigfoot flicks. It isn't better than most of them, but it certainly isn't a whole lot worse, neither. There are some elements that I appreciated, some elements that are disappointing, and then there are a whole lot of aspects that are just plain bad but forgivable considering the budgetary restrictions and lack of experience.

"Sasqua" opens atmospherically and prototypically 70's with a convertible bus (!) of youngsters cruising through a forestry New England region, guided by the tunes of a moodily sung melody that carries throughout the widely spanned opening credits. The people on the bus form some sort of unusual hippie community and settle themselves in an abandoned farmhouse on the edge of a small town, much against the will of the close-minded villagers and especially the drunken redneck deputy. Unfortunately for all of them, the nearby woods belong to a family of cannibalistic sasquatches that are very happy with the arrival of fresh meat! When several people go missing, in the village as well as in the community, the locals naturally blame the hippies, but luckily the sheriff (the only one with an IQ over 75) realizes that they should combine forces against the monsters instead of killing each other.

The brief synopsis sounds promising and full of potential, but the film suffers from a lot of substantial and technical shortcomings. There are too many characters and their relationships often don't make any sense. The hippie community members are continuously arguing with each other and don't show any signs of group spirit or unity. Their leader Big Jim (and he really is a BIG guy) spends most of his time intervening in fights and oppressing rebellious behavior. The community even contains a handful of black members with robust looks and attitudes. Could it be that writer/director Channon Scot even intended to insert a minor Blaxploitation sub plot, which was also a hugely popular cult cinema trend around that time? We surely can't complain about the amount of screen time given to the sasquatches. They – literally – run across the screen quite a few times, albeit mostly in the distance and only for a couple of seconds. You naturally don't witness any of their massacres or cannibalistic rituals, but at least there are a few sequences (notably the one with the trio of hunters) that feature a slight bit of suspense and excitement. Apart from some brief images of bloodied bodies, there isn't any gore or action to enjoy in "Sasqua" and I personally found the climax to be extremely disappointing. Surely Channon Scot could have thought of a better ending than this, even without money or directing experience? Technically speaking the film is very substandard as well, with mundane and unimaginative camera-work, lousy editing, miserable sound effects and practically inaudible dialogs. You could state this is normal and even charming, but in comparison with other no-budget amateur attempts (like for example "The Evil Dead"), "Sasqua" is rather weak. With all due respect I can't refer to "Sasqua" as a great film, but nevertheless I'm very happy that I've had the privilege of watching it. It's a genuine curiosity and worth your attention in case you're a fan of the grainy 70's exploitation culture.