'Sasquatch Sunset' puts a Bigfoot family in some hairy situations

Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough star in Zellner Brothers' latest -- supposedly.

“Sasquatch Sunset” stars Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough. Or so I’m told.

I have no way to prove that, as both actors are covered under layer after layer of prosthetics, completely unrecognizable. Nor can I tell from their voices, as “Sasquatch Sunset” is an 89-minute movie with no dialogue – at least, no human dialogue.

Eisenberg and Keough, along with Christophe Zajac-Denek and Nathan Zellner, play a family of sasquatches living in the woods of northern California. Watching “Sasquatch Sunset” feels like you’re watching a Discovery+ nature documentary that happens to be about giant, hairy, mythical creatures.

Co-directed by Zellner and his brother David Zellner, and written by David (I would love to seen that screenplay), “Sasquatch Sunset” may be the strangest in a long line of strange films from the brothers. And that includes “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter,” in which a lonely Japanese woman becomes obsessed with finding the money buried in the snow in the movie “Fargo.” 

But the weirdest thing of all about “Sasquatch Sunset” is how sincerely committed everybody is to the bit, never winking at the audience or reducing these bizarre creatures to cartoons. Almost against my will, I found myself becoming emotionally invested in this furry family, protective of them as they shamble through an indifferent, even cruel natural world that would make Werner Herzog proud.

Seen over the course of four seasons, the lives of sasquatches are nasty, brutish and short, as the foursome has to contend with predators, poisonous plants, starvation, forest fires, and harsh elements. But none of those threats is as existential as the one they find halfway through the movie – a red X spray-painted on a tree, signaling the encroachment of man.

The sasquatches communicate with each other through howls, hoots and the occasional banging on trees. Slowly, personalities start to emerge. The alpha male Bigfoot played by Zellner contends with the gentler Eisenberg over the affections of the sole female played by Keough. Meanwhile, Zajac-Denek comes across as Keough’s sensitive, artistic son, fond of doing puppetry with his furry fist.

The Zellners include plenty of gross-out gags (I now know the answer to the rhetorical question, “Does a sasquatch poop in the woods?”) and other bits of physical comedy as the quartet tries to understand their world. But there’s also real peril here – the sasquatches may truly be too dumb to live, and an extended sequence involving a giant log is terrifying because the creatures are so ill-equipped to handle the problem.

Cinematographer Mike Gioulakis films the lush forests and breathtaking mountains ranges of the sasquatches’ habitat with a reverent awe, matched by the soundtrack composed by The Octopus Project. 

“Sasquatch Sunset” is a bizarre movie, and I’m not sure who I would recommend it to. But it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. And I know that if someone outside a grocery store handed me a “Save the Sasquatch” petition, I’d sign it.

“Sasquatch Sunset” is now playing in theaters. In Madison, it opens Friday at AMC Fitchburg 18.