The Black Museum presents Primate Panic: Bigfoot on Film 1967-1980

Rumours about a giant, hairy wild beast living in the forests of the Pacific Northwest and Canada have captured the imaginations of locals since the 1850s. However, it wasn’t until two outdoorsmen, Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin, made an infamous 16mm short film of a strange, shaggy creature in 1967 that Bigfoot became a familiar face of fear across North America. Though experts and eyewitnesses continue to dispute the existence of such a creature, no one can deny that it has left its oversized footprints on pop culture and the history of horror film. This lecture will look at Bigfoot’s evolution on screen throughout the 1970s as a creature of both mystery and fright in films including The Mysterious Monsters, Legend of Boggy Creek, The Capture of Bigfoot and Night of the Demon. This lecture accompanies a screening of creepy cryptozoological classic Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot (1977).