On The Trail of Bigfoot: The Ancients (2024)

• Directed by Seth Breedlove
• Written by Seth Breedlove
• Run Time: 2 Hours, 22 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdDmjrhSi5E

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

There aren’t really spoilers because it’s a historical and cryptid documentary, and it’s a well made one. It’s really a two in one, with lots of Appalachian area history combined with an exploration of Bigfoot possibilities with lore, stories, and eyewitness interviews . It’s long, but it didn’t feel like it was. It was interesting. 

Spoilery Synopsis

Narrator Seth Breedlove talks about his love of the Appalachians and Gatlinburg. His family was from the area, and he remembers stories his father told him about people of the region. Credits roll. 

We open the Breedlove cemetery, and we see that they do have a long history in the area. They soon talk about how they heard stories about the boogeyman in the woods. They were all warned about “Things” that might be lurking. We get a brief geography and history lesson about the Appalachian Mountains and area. They talk about the many bears in the area; the region is so lush that it easily supports large predators. 

How could a Bigfoot thrive in Appalachia? Seth interviews local experts that talk about the Sasquatch stories of the area, and there are a lot of them. They talk about “Tsul ‘Kalu,” a sort of hairy giant that lived in the area according to Cherokee legends. All of the many Indian tribes in the area had names for Bigfoot; he goes way back in their culture. 

There is a lot of discussion about wildmen and various gorilla-like creatures that lived in the woods. The term “Bigfoot” didn’t come around until the 1950s, but the idea had been around pretty much forever. Many people have gone missing in the forests there, and some of them tie into the Bigfoot legends. There’s a long discussion about a missing child, Dennis Martin, from the 1960s and the search for him. He may have been kidnapped, and some people speculate that it may have been a Bigfoot. Trenny Gibson’s and Mike Heron’s disappearances are also discussed. 

Feral people are discussed next, as there are a lot of caves in the area. These aren’t the same as simple homeless people. We also meet a bunch of people who tell about their sightings of various Bigfoot-like creatures. 

Brian’s Commentary

We’ve seen more than a few of the films from Seth’s series, but this is the most serious documentary of all the ones we’ve seen. As always, the production values and camerawork are excellent. It’s half a documentary about Appalachia and half a story of the bigfoot. The two topics combined makes this feel very thorough. 

Although there are some anecdotes, the people interviewed here all seem honest and believable; unlike many Bigfoot films, this one is very short on flakes and loons. It focuses more on legends and lore than personal stories, which is nice.

This one stands out mostly due to its length, at almost two-and-a-half hours. It’s long and really takes its time. We’re twenty minutes in before there’s the first mention of Sasquatch. There’s a lot of history and well-researched folklore discussed here; it’s not just a bunch of people telling made-up stories of encounters. There are many recreations and animations that give us something to look at as people talk. 

Due to the length, it’s not a quick watch, so I’d probably recommend this one more toward the more hardcore cryptid enthusiast, but it’s also one of the best of its type. 

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought it was probably the best of the Small Town Monsters works that I’ve seen. The history aspects were well researched, and it meshed well with the cryptid exploration. I’d highly recommend it.