We're closing out the year with some Bigfoot terror! Prolific screenwriter and author Gerald DiPego brings us this backwoods Bigfoot survival thriller, which despite the blurb falls far short of Deliverance but still provides some interesting grist for the Bigfoot mill. Modern author Grady Hendrix has an in-depth review which makes note that this is the rare Bigfoot novel that keeps the sex strictly between Homo sapiens, though it's just as sleazy or more so than something like The Beast or the infamous Nights With Sasquatch, chock full as it is of rape and abuse. DiPego himself doesn't list the novel on his website. You've been warned!
Our protagonist Ruth Cassen is an anthropologist from Illinois with a wild pet theory - that the extinct prehistoric ape Gigantopithecus actually survived into the present day, accounting for modern sightings of Bigfoot. Author DiPego borrowed this idea from real life anthropologist Grover Krantz, who spent the latter half of his career using his technical knowledge to bolster the existence of Bigfoot as a prehistoric survivor. The Giganto theory stands as the most dominant "scientific" model for Bigfoot, as opposed to spiritual or occultic explanations for the beast which seem to have eclipsed stuffy old pseudoscientists like Krantz nowadays. Cassen joins a trek into the Oregon wilderness led by sleazoid guide Jack Lillion, who never met a man he couldn't lick or a woman he couldn't rape. In a hypothetical film adaptation, Cassen could be played by Brooke Adams or Karen Allen, while Lillion is just the type of rotten SOB that Leslie Nielsen perfected before his overwhelming comic turn in Airplane! There's plenty of disposable supporting characters along for the expedition, though DiPego pulls a neat trick and cuts the party down to its bare essentials midway through, after one of them suffers an accident and the majority quest on over the mountain, leaving Cassen, Lillion, the photographer Barthes and teenager Henry to face the Bigfoot and themselves in the deep woods in the middle of a raging storm. Barthes is another sleazebag character, abusing his model girlfriend as he taunts her with his industry connections, while Henry is a confused young man who develops a crush on the good Dr. Cassen. Ruth is hard up for a decent man and guides young Henry into manhood, an arc which wavers between touching, silly, and uncomfortable - perhaps like the real thing.
DiPego can be sensitive while sketching character interactions, but most of the time he prefers to brute force things with his creeps Lillion and Barthes. You'll be begging Bigfoot to show up and take these bastards apart, and thankfully (despite the back copy playing coy with whether the monster will be real or not) we finally do get some Bigfoot action at the climax. DiPego clearly did his research and took the subject seriously for the sake of his story, and it's a nice touch when Cassen sniffs out a phony footprint owing to its arch: Krantz said Bigfoot lacked one! It's another nice touch when Cassen realizes that, far from some prehistoric throwback, these Bigfoot have evolved into the Homo superior. Of course we're meant to contrast the savage Lillion and Barthes against these gentle forest people, and reflect on the greed and stupidity that leads all of our characters into this futile quest. Results are so-so, and the narrative feels truncated and underbaked.
The cover looks like it should be a stepback, but it isn't. This copy belonged to the U.S. Air Force. For a technically well done but unpleasant and underwhelming thriller, Shadow of the Beast earns two faked footprints out of four.
Signet Books, 1984
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