"Mysterious Monsters" Still Charms After More Than 40 Years

By Thomas Leturgey

The 1976 documentary “Mysterious Monsters” was one of the very first “Hollywood”-based productions featuring the Sasquatch phenomenon. At the time newspaper articles in the American Northwest and beyond printed articles of people’s often-vague encounters with the legendary creature.

A fledgling company, Sunn Classic Pictures had been responsible for family fare such as 1974’s “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams,” and low-budget documentaries that made money. The company produced mainstream product and was based in Park City, Utah, near Salt Lake.

At the height of the Bigfoot craze came “Mysterious Monsters” and its omnipresent television advertisements. A quick review of movie showtimes proves that the film played frequently in Pittsburgh and all over the country, including in fantastic Drive-In double features with 1972’s “The Legend of Boggy Creek” and 1973’s “Fantastic Planet.”

For fun, here’s a real-life examination of just one of the movie’s alleged encounters. The pinnacle scene of “Mysterious Monsters” focuses on “Rita Graham,” a young gal sitting at home on Friday, September 12, 1975. Narrator Peter Graves mentions that Graham is watching television “at 10:10 p.m.” in Washington State. No town is mentioned, and when the camera zooms in on the “County Sheriff’s Office” report, the military time actually notes 20:15, which is 8:15 p.m. Graham is shown huddled on her couch and watching a black and white television program. The show shown is proven to be stock footage, as Graham’s 8:00 p.m. options—assuming she was in the Spokane, Washington market—were interesting, but none matched the clip in the film. She could have been watching the Jackie Cooper vehicle Mobile One, MASH, Space 1999 or Washington Week in Review as 8:00 p.m. options.

Despite being September 12, the sun went down at 7:09 p.m. according to meteorological reports in Washington State in 1975. Even if the experience with Sasquatch were truly at 10:10 p.m., she would have been viewing Sean Connery’s 1971 outing as 007 in Diamonds Are Forever, Hawaii 5-0, Police Woman or Firing Line.

Daytime temperatures were in the 80’s during that time in Washington state, and lows dipped into the 50’s. “Shampoo” and the Charles Bronson starring “Breakout” were all the rage at the movie box office.

In the recreation, Sasquatch walks out of the woods and onto the Graham family porch. He swings around to the side of the home and suddenly and inexplicably smashes a fist through the window, knocks over a lamp and flings furniture about. Graham screams and calls for "David" in the home. At the ready, the unspecified friend or family member immediately appears with a rifle in his hands. He swings the door open and there’s Bigfoot in his full glory. End of scene.

At a recent viewing of the movie at Pittsburgh’s Glitter Box, a patron screamed “What happened next!!??” Well, sadly that’s were the “evidence” ends. The name “Rita Graham” doesn’t appear definitively in any Washington newspapers in 1975 and in fact, none of the “dozen” reports over 30 days Graves talks about in the film could be “corroborated,” a word he correctly describes as cementing proof. There was no front-page news about Bigfoot break-ins, just how Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was going to court for attempting to shoot President Ford, and how voters were gearing up for the upcoming elections.

There were published Bigfoot reports in Washington newspapers around this same time, but those sightings happened in Oregon.

At the conclusion of Friday’s showing, the host asked how many people in the room believed in Bigfoot. Not one raised their hand. Unfortunately, neither “Mysterious Monsters” nor a lack of real-life proof could persuade them otherwise. But it remains charming all these years later.