# Cry Wilderness

Cry Wilderness is a 1987 family adventure film directed by Jay Schlossberg-Cohen.

## Premise

Bigfoot (running away from those trying to kill him) befriends a young Californian boy named Paul whose park ranger father is tracking an escaped tiger.

## Cast

* Eric Foster as Paul Cooper
* Maurice Grandmaison as Will Cooper
* Griffin Casey as Morgan
* John Tallman as Jim
* Faith Clift as Dr. Helen Foster

## Production

Cry Wilderness was written by Philip Yordan with an estimated 100 writing credits in film since the 1940s, including 1945's Dillinger, the 1955 film noir classic The Big Combo, the 1962 film adaptation of The Day of the Triffids, and the 1964 Anthony Mann epic The Fall of the Roman Empire. In 1986, Yordan was hired by production company Visto International to make a Bigfoot movie, with the company having previously made a Sasquatch movie in 1978 that made a $4 million profit on a $150,000 budget. Writing the script became difficult for Yordan as he was told to cut out horror scenes and be restricted from adding any violence, profanity, or sex. These restrictions resulted in the script writer telling the distributor he would be writing a movie about nothing, to which the distributor acknowledged that is what they wanted.
Location shooting occurred at Balboa Park in San Diego, Mono Lake in Mono County, California and Devils Postpile National Monument in Madera County, California. The museum scene in the film was shot in the Children's Museum of Utah.

## Plot Summary

Paul is a boy attending boarding school and is on a field trip with his class to the Natural History Museum. Noticing that Paul has separated from the rest of the class, the headmaster, Mr. Douglas, goes looking for Paul to find him staring at a statue of Bigfoot. Paul tells Mr. Douglas that he met Bigfoot the last summer while vacationing with his dad Will, a park ranger, at the natural park that he works at. Paul tells Mr. Douglas that Bigfoot likes Coca-Cola and that he gave him a radio that he uses to listen to rock music.
Mr. Douglas tells Paul that he’s too old to believe in fairy tales and takes him back to rejoin his class. Meanwhile, we find out that the sheriff who presides over the park is rallying people to hunt a mysterious large animal that mauled a deer. This includes Will and his Indian friend Jim (played by a white guy in redface makeup that the costume designer occasionally forgets to apply).
Later that night, Paul sees a mysterious flashing purple light in the window of his dorm and looks outside to see Bigfoot standing in a cloud of purple smoke. Bigfoot tells Paul that his father is in danger and he needs to go help him. Paul shows one of his classmates an agate amulet that Bigfoot gave him and asks him to come to the park with him. Mr. Douglas then bursts into the room and questions Paul about what happened. When Paul tells him about Bigfoot, Mr. Douglas threatens to expel him from school for telling lies.
Paul runs away and hitchhikes to the park and meets his dad, who embraces him. They walk through the park and meet Jim. They return to Will’s cabin to find a strange man eating a piece of meat and a bunch of baby raccoons that Will adopted eating all the food in the kitchen. The strange man introduces himself as Morgan, a big game hunter the sheriff hired to hunt the large animal. Paul has a nightmare about Morgan shooting Bigfoot and decides he doesn’t trust Morgan.
The four of them travel through the park to hunt the animal and find a strange ruin filled with crumpled up Coke cans, at which point Paul’s Bigfoot amulet starts glowing orange. Paul says they’re his Coke cans that he left there last summer, but Jim is surprised at how crushed up the Coke cans are, noting that he isn’t strong enough to do that. Will also finds the radio playing rock music, and Paul says he left it there last summer. The four of them leave the ruins, with Bigfoot hiding and staring at them.
They search through the park and find a sick bird, which they take to the park’s veterinarian, Helen, who has outdoor cages filled with animals. After having dinner with her, they hear a noise and find out that the door to the cougar enclosure was torn open and the cougar is gone. This encourages them to continue the hunt, at which point we find out that a Bengal tiger has escaped from the circus and is wandering around the park.
The four of them track the tiger to a rocky pass, at which point Will tells Jim to take Paul back to school because he’s concerned the hunt has gotten too dangerous. Paul repeatedly tries to run away from Jim, and they reach a lake where they meet an Indian elder named Red Crow (played by another white guy) who has a pet eagle. Jim exclaims that he thought Red Crow died 13 years ago. Red Crow asks to speak to Paul alone, at which point he reveals that Bigfoot saved him from death and shows Paul that he has an agate amulet from Bigfoot too. Red Crow tells Paul he must tell Bigfoot to run away to the mountains or he will be killed by Morgan.
Jim takes Paul to stay with Helen while he rejoins the hunt, however Helen agrees to take Paul to go rescue Will after he tells her about Bigfoot. On their way through the mountains, their truck runs out of gas and the tiger ambushes them and uses its paw to smash the truck’s windows out. The tiger is chased away when Jim, Morgan, and Will arrive. They all regroup and chase the tiger, who has fled to an old abandoned Western mining town that exists in the park for some reason.
They track the tiger to the town’s mining tunnels and Will shoots the tiger with a tranquilizer dart. Meanwhile, Paul goes up some stairs that lead to the ruins where Bigfoot lives and tells him he must run away to the mountains, and he runs away. However, the tunnel collapses and a bunch of rocks fall on Will. Paul cries for Bigfoot to help and Bigfoot saves him by pulling the rocks off. Morgan sees Bigfoot running away and takes Paul with him to hunt Bigfoot.
Morgan eventually tracks Bigfoot down to the lake where Paul met Red Crow, but when he goes to shoot him Red Crow appears and his agate amulet from Bigfoot glows orange, temporarily blinding Morgan. Red Crow’s pet eagle then claws Morgan’s eyes out, permanently blinding him. Morgan stumbles into the lake and disappears.
Paul, Will, Helen and Jim enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner, and they reunite the baby raccoons with their mother, who takes them away into the wild. We then see Paul back at school handing in his final exam to Mr. Douglas before the Christmas holidays. Mr. Douglas asks to see Paul after class and tells him that he got a letter from Will explaining that Bigfoot was real and that what Paul told him was true. Mr. Douglas tells Paul that he actually loves fairy tales but thought he couldn’t believe in them because he was a grown up. He asks Paul if there’s a way for him to see Bigfoot too.
Paul tells Mr. Douglas that only kids can see Bigfoot, but adults can see him too if they believe hard enough. Paul’s amulet then glows orange and the two of them see Bigfoot in a cloud of purple smoke.

## Reception

The 1988 edition of The Motion Picture Guide gave the film zero stars, describing it as "an inane and poorly made feature", criticizing its acting while Eric Harwood for Variety called it one of the worst movies ever made. Dave DeNaui for The Bellingham Herald panned the film for its acting, story and dialogue, declaring the film to be "the worst film in five decades".

## Home media

The film was re-released on DVD in 2014 by Vinegar Syndrome alongside the 1970s documentary film In Search of Bigfoot.

## Mystery Science Theater 3000

In 2017, the film was the subject of parody by Mystery Science Theater 3000, as the second episode of Season Eleven. Emily St. James for Vox considered the movie to be "so preposterous" it didn't need to be riffed. Paste's Jim Vorel, on the other hand, ranked it as the second best episode of season eleven, behind Wizards of the Lost Kingdom.