First image from Shooting Bigfoot! Jeff and Jack from Facebook Find Bigfoot stopped by Musky Allen’s place on the way back from the Toronto premiere of Shooting Bigfoot. They had managed to shoot a number of shots of the movie from a poorly placed handheld cellphone that was held down very low due to tight security. The problem is that the poor placement of the video meant that the top half of the screen was completely cut off.
The FB/FB guys however did a number of really great shots of Hank attacking Morgan Matthews. Musky was shown a variety of footage – regular speed, slowed down, and still shots. This is the first ever image of Hank from the movie Shooting Bigfoot! This shot shows a closeup of the face and one of the shoulders of the Bigfoot. It is extremely impressive and looks like no mask or costume that I have ever seen. Musky’s reaction was, “Wow! Freaking wow!
Click to enlarge. First ever photo still of Hank from Shooting Bigfoot shows a closeup of the face and part of the shoulder of the Bigfoot. It looks something like a Neandertal! That does not look like a human being!
More reviews coming in from Shooting Bigfoot premiere. The reviews are continuing to pour in from the premiere of the movie last night.
A largely negative review who felt that Morgan was tackled by a man in a suit, possibly one of the nearby homeless men:
As someone who saw the film at last night’s screening, here’s what I remember from the final sequence. Dyer fired some shots, and you briefly see the back of a creature cross through the beam of a flashlight. This happens quickly and in poor lighting, so it could be anything from a person wrapped in a wool blanket to a costume to an animal. I can’t remember if there are additional shots after this. The face of a creature quickly crosses the camera lens, and the filmmaker is knocked over.
Having no knowledge of this subject and related controversies beforehand, my assumption was that the creature ran off into the woods and was not shot (or at least not seriously injured). Dyer immediately picks up the filmmaker and carries him back to their tents where he requests that they re-watch the footage. If a Bigfoot was shot and killed, it certainly seems not to have happened during this sequence, and this could explain why the filmmaker wouldn’t have any footage of a dead creature.
From Facebook Find Bigfoot, a largely positive review to supplement their earlier review:
The footage we all saw last night was not what we expected to see. Here is what is seen. Filming at night by the light of Rick’s gun and Morgan’s camera. Flash of arm, then a flash of the back (the crowd gasps), three shots are fired, and there are 10 frames of the face of a Sasquatch at four feet or less, two are very, very clear, (crowd freaks out).
Flat-wide human-shaped nose, downward facing nostrils, huge cheek bones, wide jaw, long upper lip (much longer than a modern human), scars all over face, thick hair around neck, huge dark eyes that are squinting, lips are wide. There is a single growl, and a grunt is heard. All admins agree it is the face of #2 Camper/Tent, and agrees with Musky’s description.
Wow, that review was very impressive!
Another largely positive review, this one from Angie Reeves:
Throughout Rick’s part in the film, Morgan Matthews (MM) was trying to portray Rick as a joker.
One incident…the ribs were hanging, Rick and MM leave the camp to investigate a noise, and return to find MM’s tent open, with the ribs inside. Morgan was pissed, accusing Rick of “fucking with him” (Rick denied it).
Another incident, at night, when Rick/Morgan are investigating a sound, Rick gets freaked out and tells MM that when he pointed his gun/light towards the brush, he saw a little girl of 5 or 6, standing there in her nightgown. Then she was gone.
Morgan retires to his tent and does a monolog saying that he never knows when Rick is being straight with him, and he knows there’s no little girl (and couldn’t Rick have picked a more unoriginal image to frighten him?). Then says he’s going to leave the camera on, but is sure he won’t sleep…
Then enter Hank scene as described last night. YES you see something big and bipedal moving quickly through the trees. YES you hear MM say “don’t shoot it”! YES you hear shots! YES something big knocks Morgan to the ground with the camera! The flash of the face doesn’t look like a mask to me. It was all very fast!
That’s another reason to think Morgan has edited the Hank footage to suit his agenda for the film.
That is very odd. How did the ribs get off the tree and into the tent? Why did Dyer hallucinate the ghost of a little 5 year old girl in the brush? What the heck is going on?
Here is another mixed review:
Well last night was interesting, I will start off by saying the movie in and of itself was amazing. It was funny, and entertaining. It followed 3 groups of people: Rick Dyer, Dallas and Wayne, and Biscardi. It made Biscardi look like a complete fool, Dallas and Wayne look like borderline retards and and Dyer look like an asshole. All true I am sure lol.
But let’s get to the good parts, or at least confusing parts now. The scene of the famous Tent Video went like this: the camera went on, and it was positioned on the floor of Morgan’s tent, and you hear him in a loud whisper saying, “Rick, Rick!” and calling to him. It was the same call in Rick’s version of the Tent Video you hear too. You don’t see the Bigfoot; instead you just hear Morgan, then the tent’s rattled, and its Rick. Morgan opens it up, and they walk out.
It cuts now – they are at the tree and where Rick draped the rips on it, the ribs was gone. It’s stated that the Bigfoot took the ribs, but they acted like there was still no proof of it. At this point so I found that odd because I am sure they both filmed this thing. I know Rick did at least, and I heard Morgan had 3 minutes of HD footage. Anyway it was or seemed to be played off like nothing happened other then the ribs vanished, and it was implied that Bigfoot did it.
Cut to the night in question – the camera turns on, and Rick helps Morgan out of the tent at night just like Rick said. Rick is walking with purpose and Morgan right behind him saying, “Put the gun away! Don’t shoot anybody!” then as they are walking, the light shines on something – a Bigfoot supposedly. It was on camera for about 2 seconds walking away – it was a back shot, so you see the back of the head and the entire back.
It was quick so I may be wrong, but it had a lot of resemblance to the Melissa Hovey photo, but then again, it was so quick that it was hard to tell. Very broad back though – looked like you were looking at a hairy Brock Lesner lol.
Anyway Rick raises his rifle, and Morgan says, “Don’t shoot!” and yells at Rick – I think he swore but I am not sure – and tries to grab the gun. Rick pushes him away just like he says, and the camera moves away from target. Rick chases it into the bush and darkness and then you hear shots – one at first – then Morgan is returning to camp telling Rick he is going back. He seems scared and agitated like he doesn’t want to get shot.
Then you hear two more shots somewhere near where Morgan is…the camera is jerky because he’s walking in a hurry back to camp. Then you hear rustling in the bush, so he raises the camera, and there is about a half a second to a one second shot of the creature breaking through the darkness, running at Morgan and knocking him down. It was really hard to see cause it was so fast, and you couldn’t make out details of what it looked like, but from what I saw, it wasn’t like the Tent Video; instead it looked different, but then again, it was so fast.
Morgan is on the ground, and no other shots were fired, which I thought was weird because Rick said he shot it after it hit Morgan, so don’t know what happened there. Then a few seconds later, Rick comes to Morgan and says, “Get up,” helps him get up, drags him towards the tent and drops him down.
Rick asks him to see the video and yells at Morgan to see it. Then it rewinds to where the creature charged and pauses on its face for another second (not enough time) and then it cuts to the morning where Morgan and Rick are fighting about the footage or rights to it or something along those lines. Then the movie ends with the Tent Video footage.
Response from the audience to Shooting Bigfoot. Although the ending was very dramatic and there were gasps in the audience when the face of the Bigfoot was shown, people in attendance said that most of the audience walked out of the movie confused and their general attitude was that Dyer had hoaxed the scene of the shooting of the Bigfoot at the end of the movie. This is disappointing to us believers, but it is not conclusive of anything other than that popular opinion believes in all sorts of things, true and untrue.
Why is the last three minutes of Shooting Bigfoot so unimpressive, and why was the best footage apparently cut out of the film? From the comments section:
I think the key to what’s in the film and what was shot lies in the NDA Dyer signed. RD has talked on an almost daily basis about the events surrounding the film, and as a result, Matthews may be preparing to take legal action against Dyer. This could put the ownership of the followup footage up in the air, as well as who will ultimately release the followup Hank movie.
The clear footage of Hank eating ribs only distracts from the ending of the film and probably would work better as a DVD bonus feature. I attended the world premier of Bobcat Goldthwait’s Bigfoot film Willow Creek on Monday, and in the Q & A afterwards, he said that in all the (fictional) Bigfoot movies he’s seen – once you get to see the creature, the film is over (i.e. goes down hill, loses it’s impact, etc.).
Some excellent pro-believer views about Shooting Bigfoot. From the comments section:
Seems people are not telling you people that a person from the BBC said at the beginning of the film everything you will see is factual.
Some facts:
1.) Ribs were shown in the film.
2.) Dyer did shoot his gun off.
3.) A hairy biped “Bigfoot” like creature was seen running fast in the film.
4.) As Rick said, the “Bigfoot” knocked over Morgan Matthews. (IS shown in the film)
5.) A Bigfoot is shown in the film.
The take-home point here would be the stunning statement made by the BBC official that everything you are about to see is true. In other words, he is saying that there is no hoaxing or special effects BS in the movie. For the life of me, I cannot see why a BBC official would lie and say there was no hoaxing in a hoaxed movie. I don’t believe it!
Morgan Matthews, director of Shooting Bigfoot, to do a Q and A session after the May 1, 2013 screening of Shooting Bigfoot. Tonite Matthews will supposedly have a Q and A session after the movie. Let us see what he reveals! Yet another rumor says that he will give a statement after the three showings in Toronto on May 5-6.
A view of Morgan Matthews’ possible motivation for why the film ended up edited so oddly as it was. From the comments section:
My feeling is that Matthews was dismayed that “his” project, his “fun-filled romp” with a bunch of “crazy White trash” was in danger of becoming “Rick’s proof” instead, what with all the hype surrounding it. As an artist, he was butt-hurt that nobody was coming to see HIS movie, really, they were just coming to see proof of Bigfoot, so he spun the edit to keep it on the track of his “artistic vision”.
I have little doubt all the excitement about the shooting footage which utterly drowned out any meager enthusiasm for what would otherwise have been a rather unremarkable documentary with marginal interest tweaked the bastard’s ego more than he could stand and he basically refused to allow his work to be co-opted into the circus surrounding the body. I understand how that must feel, but as far as I’m concerned, that limp-dicked teabag twat can now go fuck himself with a saguaro cactus. F-k Morgan Matthews and his douchebaggery.
Unfortunately, a lot of expectations were generated by a lot of us, myself included. It was a very obstinate move on his part, I feel; selfish, even. He clearly doesn’t owe any of us anything, in fact I’m quite sure he feels more than a bit of contempt towards us, but a more empathetic person would have realized how important this is to so many (and to science) and would have delivered the goods. I cannot help but consider him to be a rather stingy and narcissistic man for what he’s done.
I hope Matthews mans-up and at least says, “Yes, that was real animal, I will swear to that.”
When will Shooting Bigfoot be available on film for the rest of us to view? From the comments:
Since this is its world premiere, usually films spend a little time doing the festival circuit and then a theatrical release (though rarer for docs) then Video on Demand – if the film is licensed by Netflix, I think it would at least a year, if not longer, before it would be available.
A source of mine in the UK told me that they called Minnow Films UK and were told that they could purchase a copy of the film if they wished to buy one, so apparently you can buy a copy directly from Minnow if you want to.
NDA’s regarding the events surrounding the shooting of Hank and subsequent events. From the comments section:
People who have had to sign NDA’s also need to come out and tells us at least when the time limit on these things are up,I don’t see how that could violate anything.
All of these NDA’s have to expire at some point, and it would be nice to learn when they are going to expire at the very least.
Update on the arrangements under which Rick Dyer’s dead Bigfoot, Hank, is being stored near Las Vegas. From my comments section:
An arrangement was made by which the government has access to study the body in exchange for allowing it to be housed at the facility. A customized temp building was installed and is being used by Dyer’s investor group for which they have their own private security as well as the facility’s security. The investors group is in control of the building and access to the body.
The group has the privilege to allow in people who must sign numerous agreements and submit to screening, which is what Musky and any others, Jack and Jeff of Facebook Find Bigfoot, I’m sure as well, had to go through. Apparently, those working in the other parts of the facility aren’t privy to what is being housed in the temp building.
Where is Hank being stored? As noted above, Hank is being stored at a US government research facility near Las Vegas. I asked someone very much in the know about the facility if they could tell me what branch of the government is housing the body, and they told me that if they told me the branch of the government, if I was smart, I might be able to figure out very quickly the location and name of the facility. As they did not want me to know these facts about the place, I was not told the name of the US government branch. There are already a couple of folks who have managed to figure out the name and location of the facility, but they are not talking.
To be continued…
