Strange Wilderness
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Strange Wilderness is a 2008 American comedy adventure film, based on a series of independently produced short videos of the same name from the 1990s. The film was co-written and co-produced by Fred Wolf and Peter Gaulke, directed by Wolf, and starring Steve Zahn, Allen Covert (who co-wrote the script with Wolf and Gaulke), Justin Long, Kevin Heffernan, Jonah Hill, Ashley Scott, Ernest Borgnine, Harry Hamlin, and Robert Patrick.
Plot
Peter Gaulke is the host of an unsuccessful nature program called Strange Wilderness. When they meet with network head Ed Lawson, they learn that the show is being threatened with cancellation due to low ratings, inappropriate footage and poor quality since the death of Peter's father (the show's original host). While coming up with ideas to keep the show on the air, Bill Calhoun (an old friend of Peter's father) comes to him photos of Bigfoot hiding in Ecuador and possesses a map to his cave. Peter is excited but also learns that his rival Sky Pierson, host of a more successful wildlife show, will pay Bill $1,000 for the map. Unable to pay the amount, Peter tells Bill that he will have the money and pay him in a week at his mountain cabin.
Peter, along with his crew, Fred Wolf (soundman), Lynn Cooker (equipment manager), Danny Gutierrez (RV driver) and Junior (cameraman), starts preparing for the long trip. They also bring in two new people: Whitaker, a former car mechanic now hired as the animal handler, and Cheryl, a travel agent. While stopping to shoot a show on sea lions, Danny dresses up as a seal to get good angles but gets attacked by a shark and ends up hospitalized. Outside the hospital, Peter and Fred get into trouble with a local Hispanic gang, get their front teeth knocked out and go to a local dentist. These incidents result in the group's funds being drained.
The group arrive three days to Bill's cabin and learn that he already sold the map to Pierson. However, he manages to make a copy of the map since Pierson studied the map under one of Bill's security cameras. He also manages to acquire the help of renowned tracker, Gus Hayden, but the group doesn't have the money to hire him. While urinating in the bushes, Peter is attacked out of nowhere by a mother turkey and ends up with his penis inside the bird's mouth. The group rushes him to a hospital to remove the turkey off his penis. The group stops the doctor from cutting the turkey's head off when a wildlife ranger and his son, who are the turkey's owners, say there is a $5,000 reward for the bird's return.
The group continue their journey and eventually reach Ecuador where they meet up with Dick, an explorer and friend of Bill, who takes them to Gus Hayden. The next morning, however, they wake up to find that Gus has stolen their equipment before fleeing, and that Cheryl has gone with him. Though hesitant and with Peter not willing to give up, Dick agrees to lead the group through the jungle. During the night, Cheryl catches up with the group where she explains that she saw Gus stealing their equipment and pretended to run off with him so she could convince him to give her the map. The next day while crossing the river, Dick gets attacked and eaten by piranhas. They also come across Pierson's camp and find that he and his team have been killed by local pygmies. The group then gathers the camp's equipment and eventually reach Bigfoot's cave. While filming, Bigfoot steps out and ends up getting gunned down when the group was scared at his presence. Not sure how to end the show in a good way, Cooker comes up with the idea of showing Bigfoot committing suicide. They return to the studio to show Lawson their footage, where he berates them for their ridiculousness and cancels the show. This leads to a huge fight within the group.
A year later, Peter gets a visit from Milas (the original cameraman and a friend of his father) and encourages him to revive the show. Peter gets everyone back together and they make an episode about a shark attack. They show the episode to Lawson, who decides to put the show back on the air since people love shark attacks and Pierson's death gives them no competition.
The film ends with captions explaining that Strange Wilderness became successful again and six months later, they went searching for the Loch Ness Monster.
Why It's Wildly Strange
- A superbly talented cast of actors and comedians are wasted on this film.
- The story literally ends on an outtake.
- Bigfoot is brutally killed in the end. This comes out of left field and just seems horrible and mean-spirtited.
- The main characters are portrayed as the underdogs but then act mean-spirited towards characters they as lesser than them.
- There a few clips that have uncensored nudity, which is really disturbing and eye blinding.
- On the subject of uncensored nudity, there is a scene at Bill's Cabin where a camera filmed Pierson and his wife(?) had uncensored buttsex. YES. LITERALLY.
Trivia
- The film was shot in November 2005, but not released until February 2008.
