by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden
In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s the follow-up to Tahoe Joe, Tahoe Joe 2: The Nevada Bigfoot Conspiracy by Dillon Brown, Michael Rock, and Horror Dadz Productions.
Synopsis
Michael Rock and Dillon Brown return to the Tahoe wilderness, trekking through snowy mountain trails to find a young woman who went missing while seeking the elusive Tahoe Joe, Lake Tahoe’s very own version of bigfoot.
The Good
Joseph: I haven’t seen the first installment in this pair of films, so I’ll review Tahoe Joe 2: The Nevada Bigfoot Conspiracy on its standalone merits. Codirectors Rock and Brown perform well in their two lead performances, and the dialogue and camaraderie between their two characters are also solid. The budget for this film — a cross between pseudodocumentary and found footage — is somewhere between micro and very low, but the overall aesthetic is impressive and the budgetary seams rarely show. The Bigfoot creature design is simple but quite decent, with Rock and Brown showing enough of the beast to satisfy monster movie fans but wisely keeping lingering shots on the titular cryptid in short enough supply so as not to wear out its “obviously a man in a suit” welcome. The reasons for multiple camera usage is explained rather well.
Mike: When I saw this come up as one of our movies to review I figured I’d watch the first one as I knew Joe (OUR Joe, not Tahoe Joe) hadn’t seen it, so this would enhance our two person review a little with two different backgrounds of Tahoe Joe experience.
That all said; Tahoe Joe 2: The Nevada Bigfoot Conspiracy, is a decent follow-up to the first film by Brown and Rock which itself was a fun cryptid found footage affair. There’s plenty to like here if you’re a fan of either Bigfoot or the found footage style and although this isn’t treated as “found footage per se, we’ll still call it such. In fact, this bit of “movie within a movie” meta sort of approach helps the presentation which shows how to stretch a low budget into a decent film. There’s a bit more Joe (Tahoe, not Perry) here than in the first film and the suit still looks good even with some longer and more defined shots. There’s not a lot of gore but what blood there is looks real enough.
I don’t know how much “character” Brown and Rock put into their on-screen personas but both are mostly likable and provide good central characters with whom to root for, be it in finding the missing girl they’ve set out to find or to find some truth to the whole Tahoe Joe mystery.
The Bad
Joseph: Although the leads turn in interesting, realistic performances, the same can’t be said for some of the supporting cast members, who are Obviously Acting with that capital A in play hard. While the first two acts focus on the protagonists’ hunt for a missing young woman, the third act gets rather convoluted with characters that I won’t spoil here, but suffice it to say that a couple of groups are quite suddenly introduced. There’s also a bit of Sasquatch Ex Machina thrown in regarding the safety of Our Heroes, a “like real men” scuffle that feels somewhat shoehorned in, and the requisite found-footage–style wandering around in the woods. Although the practical effects makeup work on Tahoe Joe’s victims looks generally good, the shots showing them occasionally seem to last a few seconds too long, so that they start looking more like practical effects makeup than actual gore.
Mike: I mentioned that the characters of Rock and Brown being MOSTLY likable and if I was reviewing the first film I would omit that word. But here, in Tahoe Joe 2: The Nevada Bigfoot Conspiracy, I have to take some points away from both as they steal money from a dead man’s wallet and show little to no mercy for human life when things take a decidedly unexpected turn at the end of the second act.
I excuse bad acting in found footage films because it’s supposed to be regular people and so I just mentally explain away stilted performances to that character and not the actor. What I don’t excuse is bad writing and this suffers from much more of it than Tahoe Joe did. Giving the guys the benefit of the doubt, I’m going to chalk it up to trying too hard to bring closure to the first film’s lingering questions. Still, there were some mentions and callbacks to the first film that seemed to be poorly explained and/or not explained enough.
The Verdict
Joseph: Tahoe Joe 2: The Nevada Bigfoot Conspiracy is one of the better lower-budget Bigfoot movies I have seen, so I can recommend it for fans of all-things cinematic Sasquatch. It definitely made me want to check out the first film in the series.
Mike: When I got done watching Tahoe Joe in preparation for Tahoe Joe 2: The Nevada Bigfoot Conspiracy, I was excited to see where Brown and Rock took their story and, for the most part, I was not disappointed. There are some shortcomings but nothing that can’t be explained away by their enthusiasm for this project and maybe a bit of blind love, not seeing the forest for the trees as it were. Like the first film, the meta aspect of us watching a finished project of recorded (found) footage helps the film stand out from similar indie fare, making this an enjoyable journey. Recommended for fans of cryptid movies, especially those that are presented as documentaries of the search for (and discovery of) Bigfoot.
Tahoe Joe 2: The Nevada Bigfoot Conspiracy
Directed By: Dillon Brown, Michael Rock
Written By: Dillon Brown
Starring: Nancy Anne Ridder, Hunter Nino, Leonora Scelfo, Dillon Brown, Michael Rock
Run Time: 1h 14m
Rating: NR
Release Date: March 29, 2024