As a writer, sometimes you are assigned projects from your editor that you’re not really all that thrilled about doing. Other times you take on a project from your editor because, despite knowing nothing about the content, it seems like it may suit you and your abilities. Other times, you get “Sasquatch,” easily one of the strangest and most intriguing true crime docuseries I’ve seen in very long time.
I knew nothing about this series that recently premiered on Hulu, just that it involved murder, drugs, and Bigfoot. That synopsis alone should peak the interest of any true crime aficionado, but nothing can prepare you for the journey “Sasquatch” ends up taking you on. It’s balanced, eery, almost mystic approach to myths and legends is haunting and intriguing, and the ever shifting narrative will have you hanging on every single word as the story is revealed little by little.
“Sasquatch” is the true crime story you didn’t know you’ve been waiting for, and stands as one of the best true crime series I’ve seen in a very long time.
If you’re like me, the idea of Bigfoot and Bigfoot believers somehow mixing with an unsolved, never investigated triple homicide that supposedly took place in the backwoods of the Emerald Triangle in Northern California seems like a set up for a science fiction novel. But watching investigative journalist David Holthouse peel back layer after layer of the darkest parts of the sunshine state in hopes to get the bottom of a story he heard almost 30 years ago is fascinating.
Produced by the Duplass Brothers and directed by Joshua Rofé, the creators tap into something truly unique, unseen in the true crime drama. They manage to balance mythical monsters in foreign domestic lands with the monsters among us, diving deep into the seedy underbelly of the California drug business. Holthouse is a truly daring journalist, as his previous works as an undercover everything demonstrates his fearlessness for the truth.
What is most unique about “Sasquatch” isn’t just that they’re able to include interviews with bigfoot chasers, bigfoot hoaxers, and bigfoot believers alongside interviews with former and current drug dealers, users, and very dangerous and connected individuals, but that they’re able to do all of it in a way that never feels disparaging to the individuals. The dark, macabre animations of Drew Christie paint a whole new picture of places we don’t really know in California, revealing much about a world we tend to forget. Whether you believe in bigfoot or believe that actual people are monsters, places like Spy Rock Road (where the murder was said to take place) and backwoods of Northern California more than lend themselves to believing in one or the other. “Sasquatch” is unwavering in its unraveling of the war on drugs and people of those woods, and how being that isolated surrounded by nothing but giant, thick canopies and redwoods and drugs can lead to some of the darkest parts of humanity.
There is definitely a part of you that wants to eye roll hard when anyone starts talking about bigfoot as a real entity, but “Sasquatch” does well to make sure that you fully grasp just how places like this come to believe in ghost stories. Everything about where “Sasquatch” takes place is unsettling to say the least, and the series does a terrific job in making sure it never loses sight of that. Even as the stories get crazier and crazier, and the rabbit hole gets deeper and deeper, The Duplass Brothers and Rofé never venture too far off from the heart of the series, and that is the darkness that surrounds us all in places we didn’t know about. It digs deep into what creates monsters, both myth and human, and what happens when decades of drug land become the very fabric of these cities. The people are products of a tumultuous environment, which in turn makes even the most out there parts of this story somehow believable.
“Sasquatch” is an absolutely fantastic docuseries, one that sets it apart in a very crowded and overpopulated true crime series. It’s never what you think and even when you think it is, something makes it get even crazier than you could ever imagine. I won’t spoil the conclusion or even the puzzle pieces that put this whole into motion. It is truly a story that has to be seen to be believed, and even when it all ends you may not even be sure of things yourself.
If you need bigfoot, weed, and murder in your life, Hulu’s “Sasquatch” has you covered. I can’t recommend it enough.
