Legend of the Sandsquatch (2006) by Lola Wallace

Director: Lola Wallace

Year: 2006

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Creature Feature

Plot:

Trying to find her missing father, a woman joins a group of friends on a trip out to the desert to find him while her boyfriend and his band decide to use the trip to pull a prank on them, but when they find that the legendary creature he was chasing is real must try to get away alive.

Review:

This was a somewhat decent if overall problematic genre effort. One of the better aspects on display here is the decent enough setup that provides a fine time for this kind of feature. The whole idea of the family legacy trying to deal with the vicious creature that has haunted their grandfather for decades following an incident when he was their age is a solid starting point, offering up the kind of worthwhile launching point for his obsession to find it as well as the granddaughter's desire to honor him by checking on his quest to get to the bottom of everything. The need to gather the friends and decide to head up to follow through on everything and getting caught up in the struggle with the creature is a fine way to carry that and provide a decent connection for everything.

This sets the stage for the fun finale where the creature finally appears and sets off on a decidedly silly rampage against each of the different groups out in the desert. After starting with the initial attack on the grandfather when he was a teenager, the remainder of the scenes here feature some cheesy fun where the humanoid creature is brought through some fun and brutal action against the groups. From the chase against the dirk-biker by himself in the middle of the desert, slaughtering the band members who are walking through the night, or finally attacking the main group while hiding in the desert, it all comes to a head with a solid battle in the creatures’ underground lair that has some fine connections due to its storytelling way of bringing everything together for a lot to like here.

There are some rather big issues that hold this one up. Among its biggest drawbacks is a wholly bland and sluggish pace that really makes this one quite difficult to get into. The first half spends far more time on the relationship drama that goes on between the girl and her boyfriend that’s not in the slightest bit interesting, not just with his blowing her off to spend time with his band at the concert but the extracurricular activities that include screwing around with groupies or encouraging them to partake in a prank that makes him out to be such a despicable prick that it’s impossible to see what initially drew them together in the first place. These scenes just do nothing to help make any of them likable and feature such flawed logic that it’s hard to see what the goal of it all is.

As well, there’s also the unfortunate bonus of this material being done at the expense of getting to know the main creature at all. Since far too much of the film is spent with the group traveling to the cabin in the desert to find out what happened or the band trying to enact their prank, it leaves the film with hardly any action from the creature or a chance to get to know it anyway. All we get is one real line determining what it is and its origins so there’s very little chance to get to know it so that when it does strike some of it comes off somewhat blandly. Even worse is the fact that it’s all so late in the film because all these other bland setups are being used first that it can be a struggle to get going, and with the low-budget origins showing up as well there are some big issues on display.

Overview: **.5/5

A rather fun if somewhat problematic genre effort, there are enough points to like for this kind of indie feature even if these do get canceled out somewhat by the negative features here. Those with an appreciation for this type of feature or who don't mind the negatives might want to give it a shot while most others out there should heed caution.