Mockumentary sends a jaded TV reporter on the trail of the mysterious monster with moderately funny consequences
This passably funny mockumentary, which lampoons Vice Media’s gonzo-hipster journalism, could serve as a viable calling card for a bigger
Hollywood comedy for writers Zach Lamplugh and Brian Emond, who also star (while the former also directs). Emond plays Brian, a jaded reporter cheesed off with the “garbage leads” constantly thrown to him by trendy media outlet Compound. The final straw comes when he’s overlooked for a bigger broadcast role in favour of Dirty Dolla$ign$, a moronic
Rapper who serves as food/cannabis correspondent. Instead, Brian is dispatched to a Georgia backwater with his producer Zach (Lamplugh) on a junk assignment: to find the mythical sasquatch.
Filling out the film’s 10-minute intro, Emond and Lamplugh’s Vice parody material is sharp, nailing its fatuous edginess: Brian reports on homelessness (rebranded as “urban camping”), artisanal antibiotics and, the most pressing thing to emerge from the Ukrainian war, its craft-beer scene. Dirty Dolla$ign$’s posse, excellently, contains a Raybanned lackey called White Morpheus. But the bigfoot chase is an odd choice for the main storyline. More Ripley’s Believe It or Not! material, it doesn’t seem to be in the Vice wheelhouse – though, with it being exactly the kind of naff material Brian loathes, maybe that’s the point.