'Sasquatch Sunset' spoilers! Bigfoot movie makers explain the super-weird film's ending

2024-12-25 10:12:30 source:lotradecoin tools category:News

Spoiler alert! We're discussing important plot plots and the ending of “Sasquatch Sunset” (in theaters now), so run away if you haven’t seen it yet.

If you’ve ever been intrigued by the myth that is Sasquatch, also known as Bigfoot, then “Sasquatch Sunset” is your kind of film.

What kind of film? Think slapstick nature docudrama: "The Office" meets “David Attenborough Presents."

Written and directed by David and Nathan Zellner, the 90-minute movie imagines what it would be like to take cameras and follow a family of Bigfeet (is that even the right term?) around the prehistoric forests and alleged Bigfoot stomping grounds of northern California.

There’s anger, humor, sex and death throughout this one-year journey, which stars (though you won’t recognize them) Jesse Eisenberg (“Zombieland”) and Riley Keough (“Daisy Jones & The Six”), as well as Nathan Zellner and Christophe Zajac-Denek.

We asked the Zellner brothers to explain the meaning of this offbeat movie, their choice to set it in modern times and why there's a lot of poop throwing.

Do the filmmakers who dreamed up 'Sasquatch Sunset’ believe in Bigfoot?

Among Bigfoot fans, “there are believers and there are those who want to believe,” says David Zellner. “But regardless of where you stand, we humans need these stories.”

Because scientific advances “essentially now have an explanation for almost everything,” Zellner says, humans more than ever need to be able to connect to the unknown and the natural world, which Bigfoot represents.

“So much is mapped and explained now,” he says. “We need to have that sense of wonder, which hopefully you get watching this film. Folklore has been with us forever for a reason.”

What does the ending of 'Sasquatch Sunset' mean?

At the beginning of “Sasquatch Sunset,” it is unclear when the movie is taking place. All we see are ape-like creatures in a primordial forest.

But about halfway through, the Sasquatch family stumbles across a redwood tree marked with a red “X,” a sign that logging is taking place nearby. They’re baffled. Then they come across a camper’s tent, a paved road and finally in the last scene, they’re left standing in front of a giant building that says Bigfoot Museum.

“We wanted the beginning of the movie to have that Garden of Eden feel to it, but then gradually as they make their journey, the family intersects with the human world,” says Nathan Zellner. “It seemed very logical for us to tell the story that way.”

Why do the stars of 'Sasquatch Sunset' throw poop around?

There are a few scenes in “Sasquatch Sunset” where the protagonists get upset and thrown their poop. One instance is when a cougar is munching on the remains of one of their Bigfoot friends. Another is when they encounter an asphalt road and get totally enraged, which the Zellners says is their nod to the wacky Looney Tunes cartoons of their youth.

“We wanted to normalize Bigfoot behavior and make them relatable in a way many animals are,” says David Zellner. "That includes things like marking their territory, often with excrement, as we know from cats and dogs, and, yes, throwing their poop as apes do.”

It wasn’t hard to get the actors to go along with the scatological humor, he adds. “That yelling vocalization from Riley, that was all her, screaming,” says Nathan with a laugh. Adds David: “Riley said that (poop-throwing) scene was her favorite. She told me, ‘You better not cut it!' ”

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