Movie Macabre

The inner flap of the dust jacker of Monster Hunting Today (1983) asks, “Are you interested in monsters?” Why yes, yes, I am. Unfortunately, this Daniel Cohen book covers pretty much the same ground as Aylesworth’s and similar cryptid-focused books. It’s also far breezier than most of Cohen’s books, with really big type. I read it in about two hours? Topics include dinosaur survivals, lake monsters that aren’t Nessie, Nessie, giant octopi and Yeti/Sasquatch.

The last chapter is titled “Bigfoot: Good News/Bad News” and honestly, the bad news was pretty bad. First, the Mt. Saint Helens eruption destroyed the area known as Ape Canyon, ground zero for Bigfoot folklore. This is the place were miners in the ’20s shot at a supposed Bigfoot, who brought back friends and laid siege to their cabin that night. The story is recounted in pretty much every Bigfoot book up to that point (and memorably dramatized on In Search Of…) and the eruption meant that if there were Bigfoots in the area, they were probably gone now. Worry not, though, because the following year, Rant Mullens came forward claiming that not only was the Ape Canyon story a hoax, but also that he’d carved multiple pairs of big wooden feet that hoaxers had been using for decades to seed the countryside with tracks. After that, Cohen recounts sightings by Paul Freeman that resulting in footprint casts that some folks thought were really good and others thought were clearly a hoax. The chapter ends with John Beckjord’s crackpot theory that Bigfoot can’t be found because he’s from another dimension. Sorry, there was supposed to be good news in this chapter?

1990s “Happy Halloween” t-shirt.

130 favorite horror movies: (4/130)

"listen, there’s a bunch of people from the cemetery who are stark, staring, mad, and they’ll kill you and eat you if they catch you. it’s like a disease. It’s like rabies, only faster, a lot faster. that’s why you’ve got to come and get us out of here now… right now!”

George Cruikshank (1792–1878), “Grandpapa’s Story or The Witches Frolick”

illustration for ‘The Ingoldsby Legends’ Richard Harris Barham (as Thomas Ingoldsby)

Source details and larger version.