Even if you’re a such a cryptid-cinema completist that you’ve subjected yourself to the likes of Bigfoot Goes to Hell or Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper, I guarantee you’ve never encountered a Bigfoot movie quite like Sasquatch Sunset. I say this already having seen the one in which he goes hog-wild at a nudist camp, the one where his nipple inflates from excitement and the one where he tears off a urinating man’s penis.

From indie-pic iconoclasts David and Nathan Zeller (Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter), the film depicts a year in the life of a four-member family of skunk apes. No dialogue is spoken beyond grunts and howls as they go about their way, foraging for food and shelter, and stumbling into one strange, dangerous situation after another.

Only two bits stretched too far into sketch comedy, like mimicking humans’ cellphone usage with a turtle standing in for the tech. Otherwise, ignoring the laws of nature dictate the shenanigans. It’s as if the “Dawn of Man” prologue in 2001: A Space Odyssey were remade as a ribald comedy. Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part I took first crack by opening with Kubrick’s apes masturbating; the Zellners expand that into feature-length, covering all the bases of bodily functions.

It’s filthy, funny and — not referring to bowels here — oddly, oddly moving. To say such a style will polarize audiences is an understatement. Decidedly unconventional rather than experimental, Sasquatch Sunset is likely to prompt a flood of early walkouts. Whenever I witness such a hasty response — e.g., at every Paul Thomas Anderson or David Lynch screening — I consider it a badge of honor for the film. Congrats, Zellners! You’re in excellent company.

Expertly selling the inhuman illusion, the actors disappear behind first-rate makeup and prosthetics, to such a degree that I couldn’t determine whether Jesse Eisenberg (Now You See Me) or Nathan Zellner played the patriarch. No ID issue exists with Riley Keough (2019’s The Lodge) or Christophe Zajac-Denek (Tales of Halloween), respectively being the only woman and little person among the quartet. Each is excellent, gelling as a true ensemble.

Technically, the landscape shots are stunning, thanks to Oscar-worthy cinematography from Michael Gioulakis (2019’s Us). In its sixth screen collaboration with the Zellners, The Octopus Project delivers a beautiful score that, while different from the Texas trio’s alt-electronic albums, is no less melodic.

Detest Sasquatch Sunset all you wish — and many will — but its enigmatic energy clicked with me right away. The best moment arrives in a final shot that conveys irony, craft and an otherworldly power that registers that deadpan frame as an all-time great. —Rod Lott

Opens in theaters Friday, April 19. Get it at Amazon.

Director Gus Van Sant was on the top of the film world in the 1990s, with the semi-wistful Good Will Hunting heralding a true rags-to-riches story. Then, the 1998 shot-for-shot/pretension-to-pretension remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho barreled its way though the floppish door, with its brain-numbing thunderclouds, bleating sheep and other l’artiste touches.

So, yeah, I didn’t like the lousy remake.

But I was pretty much in love with Van Sant’s early work, especially To Die For. I saw it opening night in 1995, mostly because I was hoping to score some time with a private school girl I was very smitten with. Of course, she stood me up — I was a 15-year-old jerk who invited girls to Van Sant movies because I liked My Own Private Idaho and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. (To be fair, I think my Film Threat subscription had more to do with my fandom.)

Even sitting alone in the movie theater, I recall really liking the movie. Why wouldn’t I? Not only was it Van Sant’s new flick, but I also liked the Buck Henry script and, even more, I was entranced with the style of tabloid journalism that started with O.J. Simpson, Tonya Harding and Lorena Bobbitt. (Boy, no wonder I was often alone at the movies. *tear*)

In the black comedy, we meet the über-perky Suzanne Stone (the únter-perky Nicole Kidman). She is obsessed with being a “famous” television journalist. Told in flashback form, her life plays out like a John Waters movie with an L.A. snarky edge.

Suzanne believes the self-empowerment mantras about how television is the one great provider — one that doesn’t mesh with her new husband, Larry (Matt Dillon). Over the year, she becomes consumed with making it big, sans Larry. Soon, she finds a trio of white-trash true believers (including a young Joaquin Phoenix) in her cause, and she creates a teen cult of prepubescent murderers.

Being the near-spiritual dry run to Alexander Payne’s Election, To Die For is revelatory for the sleazy ticks and upselling tricks that now seem commonplace with reality TV becoming the status quo. Although things were different on 1995, To Die For is still a prescient movie. That being said, the one actor who holds it together is Phoenix, with Kidman and Dillion being too cartoonishly evil and dumb, respectively. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.