Stomping Ground (2014)

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Am I Missing Something?

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

The first must-see film of the year.

STOMPING GROUND is a film which is marketed as a Bigfoot movie but turns out to be some turgid relationship drama instead. The story is about a young couple who go Bigfoot hunting in the woods, only to run in with another character who tries to break up the relationship. The production values are nil, and for a film described as a comedy horror, I didn't laugh once. There's a lot of bickering, a lot of arguing and conversations which add nothing to the overall picture, just endless soul searching which quickly becomes tiresome.

okay so i am a huge fan of horror movies and have seen some decent yeti/big foot films, but most of them are trash. this one however is worse than trash. it has terrible acting and doesn't make much sense. if you're looking for a good big foot movie look elsewhere. i actually cannot believe this has 5/10 stars. If you want an okay-ish big foot movie try Willow Creek or Exists. this movie is utter trash and isn't worth wasting your time watching.I know i might be a little bit brutal in writing this but do yourselves a favor and don't bother. the whole movie is basically 4 idiots walking around in a forest with a banjo playing. it is cliché and written extremely badly, has no mid peak and is boring the entire way through, extremely terrible special effects even though it's a low budget film they could have definitely done it better. none of it is funny or humorous it's just lame and not one part of it was good besides when it finished and i didn't have to watch it anymore.

A young Chicago couple Ben and Annie return to Annie's small North Carolina hometown, bumping into some of her old friends they embark on an impromptu Bigfoot hunt which threatens their relationship and lives.I love a good Bigfoot film, the ones though with blood and guts, there's been a spate of the recently, like shark films and creature features they're a minefield in terms of quality ranging from Eduardo Sánchez's Exists to (Syfy, enough said) Bigfoot. Director Dan Riesser's Stomping Ground, is a low budget surprisingly good traditionally shot Bigfoot film. While the camera work is a little rough in places, it benefits from an on location shoot. To drum up the film's saleability to horror hounds Evil Dead's Theresa Tilly appears very briefly. We get some dead bodies, a severed finger, a severed head and a pretty good Bigfoot costume (no rubbish CGI, hooray).John Bobek's city boy Ben and Tarah DeSpain's Annie are strong enough to carry the film as their relationship is tested. For a low budget film the acting excels. Jeramy Blackford, is notable as Paul and gives performance (akin to Eric Balfour's Brad in Blackfoot Trail killer bear feature) as Annie's former boyfriend, which prompts some tension between him and Ben. Justin Giddings is amusing enough and plays local Bigfoot expert Jed. J. Michael Radtke's visual Bigfoot effects work better from behind and in the shadows, with the bright show down stealing some impact and effect.There's the expected Deliverance jokes and references to Wrong Turn, writers Riesser and Andrew Genser's script works best when it avoiding pop culture references, to their credit they give Annie enough back-story throughout without dropping everything in the first five minutes and the knocking, den building, hair and calls remind you it's a Bigfoot film. The extremely long build up struggles to hold attention with the Bigfoot segments coming late in the latter half of the third act. The ego-stroking, chest-beating competition between Ben and Paul gets a little repetitive objectifying Annie. Stomping Ground is more interesting when they're talking about local history, drinking moonshine, playing games and being attacked.At 80 minutes it feels longer than it is, tonally Riesser's offering doesn't hold up comedy wise to be another Tucker and Dale versus Evil, there's also not enough Sasquatch focus and gory action set- ups to fully satisfy horror fans. That said, it's a commendable independent film effort and certainly worth checking out especially if you're a Bigfoot lover.

Good Bigfoot movies are just as hard to come by as good Werewolf movies. For some reason, they are generally done quite poorly, and this is no different. It's a weak story to begin with, a country girl takes her city boyfriend to where she grew up in the south. Old flame shows up and tries to sabotage the relationship all whilst they're out looking for Bigfoot. Yeah. The editing, dialogue and acting are all pretty bad here. The slow pacing and anticlimactic ending do not help either. It's a pity too, this is shot OK and even the Bigfoot creature looks decent for something i imagine was done on a very limited budget. Forgettable and mediocre. Pass on this one.