A Flash of Beauty: Paranormal Bigfoot

A follow-up to last year’s A Flash of Beauty: Bigfoot Revealed—which I have not seen—in A Flash of Beauty: Paranormal Bigfoot, eye-witnesses recount personal Bigfoot encounters, challenging both science and society, in their quests to uncover the truth, taking viewers to a place they likely have never been before… a place where the world of the Bigfoots intersects with the world of the paranormal.

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” — Carl Sagan

That’s the quote that opens this documentary, and after seeing the film, I have to assume that the intended implication that comes with using that particular quote is: “Not here, of course, but… somewhere.”

Leaning heavily on the natural beauty of the Northwestern wilderness, while relying on the expertise of a plethora of truculently loquacious biblical “scholars” and a bevy of amateur “scientists/historians” from the Dunning-Kruger school of thought, all of it topped with a liberal helping of generic Native American-y sounding talk co-opted to lend credence to the usual “who says science is right, do your own research!” jumble of jibber-jabber theories, this documentary generally just goes on at great length.

Bigfoots are… Aliens. Spirits. Ball Lightning. George Soros. A divergent branch of human evolution. Dark Matter. The CIA. Ancient Gods. Sensual ethereal beings. On and on. All of it painted in shades of aging hippy with nothing better to do then walk around the woods in their moldering and sweat-darkened teva sandals.

But the government doesn’t want you to know about that…

In the end, the only way this most recent blend of Bigfoot blatherskite stands out at all is in how boring it is.

And not because it didn’t make fun of the subjects either—which it doesn’t, this is a believer’s documentary—but because it offers nothing new. If you’ve ever seen any of the many different Bigfoot believer documentaries, especially the ones that seem like at any moment they’re about to take a hard left turn into erotic Bigfoot fanfiction—which I have—then you’ve seen this one.

Except here, there’s no coherence to the myriad of woo-woo talk.

And by that, I don’t mean that it’s confused, or that it’s confusing, either—even though it definitely is—it’s that when it’s all put together, it’s saying nothing. It’s just so unfocused. What’s the intention here? What are you trying to illustrate by putting all of these stories together? “Bigfoot exists?” Is that’s it? Is that all? Why? There’s no discernible agenda, no push, and seemingly no passion. It feels like they had a bunch of leftover footage from the last film, so they just… spliced it all together, and released it… which might be the actual truth of the situation.

But all that aside, the film’s biggest problem here is that it’s presented in the dullest manner possible.

It’s the worst kind of boring talking heads, just… going on. Because of that, even though it’s only a very plodding hour and a half long, it very quickly becomes kind of sad watching this pitiable parade of very average weirdos, all so eagerly volunteering to explain their particular life-consuming bugaboo to the world… or at least, to the few dozen of us out there who stumbled across this film late one night, on some random streaming service, after a Lost Farms Blueberry Chew…

And yeah, sure, it’s natural to wonder if these people were all drunk and/or stoned as well, not just when they had their Bigfoot experience, but also as they are recounting the story to the film.

And honestly, I’d bet… yeah, they probably were.

But the pathetic air to the whole thing makes it clear that’s not the issue. It seems much more likely that these are just unremarkable people, hungry for meaning in their small lives, hungry to be special in some way, and the way they’ve chosen to do this is to tell anyone and everyone, at great length, that they regularly communicate psychically with Bigfoots, the wise and all-knowing guardians of the forest, who sigh, and tell them how sad they are to see the way humanity disregards the planet. And of course, the reason the Bigfoots have decided to share this message specifically with them is because of their special aura and their psychic abilities.

Also, occasionally the Bigfoots leave rocks on their front porches… as a message. Also, as an initiation. One time… one of the rocks was in the shape of a Bigfoot’s foot.

One of the local Bigfoot experts, at the height of Covid, asked the Bigfoots for help, spelling out in block letters that he left on a stump altar that was deep in the woods: “Can we meet?” And at some point, the Bigfoots rearranged those blocks in answer, spelling out the words “Toe Pie.”

Toe Pie.

Suck it, doubters. In your face.