A new Bigfoot horror film, DAWN OF THE BEAST, has been released.

Uncork'd Entertainment sent me a description of Dawn of the Beast before I watched it. “Aiming to see Bigfoot...” was the first four words that hooked me, and I thought to myself, “Well, I liked Willow Creek, so let's see what Dawn of the Beast has to offer.”

It did not let me down.

In Dawn of the Beast, a group of graduate students attend an overnight “field trip” to a cabin in the woods led by the professor and teaching assistant of their cryptozoology class. (While the film describes these “woods” as “Northeastern”, Dawn of the Beast was filmed in upstate New York.)

Supposedly, these woods are home to many Bigfoot sightings, especially during “dead month” (i.e., September 4 to October 2), when there are clusters of missing persons cases or deaths. Naturally, this field trip occurs during the final days of “dead month.”

During a cryptozoologically oriented nature hike led by the professor, Dr. Dennis Kasdan (Willard Morgan, Lilly (Anna Shields) runs into eye-patched Everett (Grant Schumacher), staring at a large muddy footprint. Concurrently, while Chris (Adrián Burke) is photographing black-capped chickadees, teaching assistant Oz (LeJon Woods), Jake (Chris Cimperman), and Isabella (Ariella Mastroianni) find a skeleton (from which Isabella steals an emerald necklace) that they decide to keep secret to avoid ruining the field trip.

That night, when Isabella borrows Jake’s car for an errand, she sees the “unspeakable evil living out in those woods”. And it sees her back. Unfortunately…

“If it knows you’re there, they’ll be coming for you.”

Dawn of the Beast, directed by Bruce Wemple and written by Shields, is basically an installment in an anthology film series about monsters in upstate New York. (Maybe there’s a New York equivalent of the Jersey Devil?)

In 2020, Wemple directed (and Shields wrote) Monstrous, another film about Bigfoot sightings in upstate New York, which starred Shields and Schumacher. In that same year, Wemple wrote and directed The Retreat, a film about the Wendigo (also starring Schumacher, Cimperman, and Mastroianni).

I have not seen Monstrous or The Retreat but, noticing that Dawn of the Beast’s “unspeakable evil” (i.e., the Wendigo) looked nearly identical to the Wendigo in The Retreat’s trailer, I went looking for an interview of Wemple to see what he had to say.

Watch Dawn of the Beast on demand April 6
Pros: (1) As a native of the northeastern US, Wemple and Shields did well to capture the atmosphere of how eerie its woods are: While you may be watching one thing, something else may be watching you. (2) Burke’s performance was quite good, reminiscent of Warren from Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (3) Exceptional makeup design from Jared Balog.

Cons: (1) Its scariest moments were disjointed, given shaky and oddly positioned camera angles that did more to befuddle than terrorize, coupled with (2) blood and gore that were too digitized.

Overall, Dawn of the Beast is as Wemple and Shields intended: a fun “drive-in” movie, warranting 3 of 5 stars, as its strengths of setting, eeriness, and suspense were diluted with strange choices for cinematography in its most critical scenes.

DAWN OF THE BEAST premieres on DVD and Digital on April 6, 2021, from Uncork’d Entertainment.