Panic Fest 2023: The Bigfoot Trap and Trader

Fake it ’til you make it! I wasn’t planning on doing a capsule review, but upon viewing two films I felt they had quite a bit in common. The Bigfoot Trap seemed like it was going to be a film about a Bigfoot hunter finally finding that proof to be taken seriously. Trader looked to be a film about the horrors of the stock market, and the insanity that comes with it. Two films that couldn’t have less in common if they tried. Right? They both share a main theme of exaggeration and bending the truth when it comes to personal gain. I liked one of them more than the other, but both do a solid job of making their respective points, albeit in extremely different methods.

The Bigfoot Trap

Written and directed by Aaron Mirtes

Josh MacMahon (Tyler Weisenauer) finds more than he bargained for when he leaves the safety of his man on the street style “reporting” for sticks and bramble when he joins Red Wilson (Zach Lazar Hoffman), the head of the Southern Sasquatch Research Foundation. Josh’s “show” The Point follows him as he seeks out the dumbest of people to “interview” for the Buzzfeed-style website he creates content for. The Point is the moneymaker for this organization, which means Josh’s journalistic intentions are naturally thrown aside. Rather than working on a piece about autism, his passion piece, he is forced to meet up with Red, who is said to have irrefutable proof of the big ole lug. When truths come out, bullets go flying. Both of these men’s lives are set to change irrevocably.

It should be said upfront that The Bigfoot Trap was hit-and-miss for me. There are some moments that landed really well and I thought were perfectly done, and other moments that just left me a bit dumbfounded. The dichotomy of Red and Josh is fairly well written. Red is a true believer, just like the other dopes Josh interviews, but what if there was a reason he is a believer? Josh has no empirical proof that Bigfoot exists making him think he’s just making another fluff piece. What Josh doesn’t know is he’s about to be the news, and not in the way you may think. The idea of forcing someone who wants to tell actual stories into their own story works on its own, and the script creates a lot of tension fromf it.

Where the film loses me is visually. There’s a disconnect between the story and the visuals. The script feels smarter than the film looks. We get these great character moments and interactions paired with what feels like Asylum-level visuals. The Bigfoot Trap doesn’t look bad, it’s color graded and lit properly, there’s just this flatness to the images—I wish there were more depth to them. Let us explore the vast wilderness behind Red and Josh while they have one of their many conversations.

Zach Lazar Hoffman is perfect for the role of Red, it almost feels like it was written for him. Behind the dishonesty of Red, there is this level of innocence. He’s a man who truly believes in what he’s saying and would do anything to make it real. Hoffman hits all of these emotions effortlessly. Tyler Weisenauer on the other hand missed the mark for me. His performance reminded me of Ryan Kwanten in Dead Silence; there’s a lot to the character that isn’t properly portrayed on screen. Some scenes between the two are fantastically acted, even if Hoffman does a lot of the emotional heavy lifting.

The Bigfoot Trap doesn’t often know if it wants to be funny, sad, or spooky. If the script had stuck to one of those emotions it might have landed better rather than feeling like a bunch of ideas put together. What this film does right is misdirection. I can honestly say I had no clue the film was going to be like this. Initial expectations were going to be a quirky Bigfoot hunting movie and not a character study on two people who have more in common than they might realize. For that alone, The Bigfoot Trap should be considered a successful film. I ended this film surprised, the final shot was a lot more emotional than I thought a film like this could be.

Trader

Written and directed by Corey Stanton

Scammer and all-around not-great person Trader (Kimberly-Sue Murray) goes down a rabbit hole of greed, drugs, and death. Set in one location, Trader spends her days popping Adderall (or a medicine like that), chugging energy drinks, and snorting wasabi. When the idea of day trading comes across her path, she will do anything in her power to make herself a winner. After all, the tagline for Trader is, “This is a success story.”

Where to start with this one? Firstly, I had been unknowingly familiar with Stanton’s previous film Robbery. One thing I really love about film is watching how a filmmaker grows throughout their oeuvre; taking the lessons they learned from one film and using them to create a better project. That is not me saying Robbery was bad, but Trader was significantly better.

Bottle films are difficult to pull off. A filmmaker must fully grasp the elements of the story they want to portray while also finding a way to make the directing interesting. Staying in one location can get boring as hell when done wrong. On top of that, you must have a great actor who can be charismatic enough to carry a film for the runtime. There has been so much growth from Robbery to Trader not just with Stanton’s writing, but also his direction. To boot, Kimberly-Sue Murray seems like the perfect fit for this role. She finds a way to bring us both a protagonist and antagonist, balancing us between rooting for and against her. Trader says or does whatever she needs to to get what she wants, she’s a ball of putty that will shape itself into whatever she thinks the hand wants it to be. That’s not to say Trader is a pushover at all, Trader is a ruthless, uncaring, manipulative sociopath.

The personality of Trader fits perfectly with the set and light design. Like Trader, the walls are bare and puke yellow/green. No decoration, besides a couple of pieces of crime scene tape, nothing personable. The most visually thematic thing about Trader doesn’t come until late in the film with a set of RGB lights. It feels boring to say that, but the payoff for these lights was a stroke of genius from Stanton.

On paper, this film doesn’t sound like it should work. A one-location, one actor on screen, psychological horror film about trading stocks? That doesn’t work. Trader does. Trader is an unnerving assault on your brain—it feels too real. Nothing about this film—besides Bloody Sundae— seems fake. I think that’s what really struck me about Trader, this almost feels like we’re watching a dramatic recreation of a true crime story. I was genuinely surprised by this one, and cannot recommend it enough. If you like psychological horror that feels grounded in reality Trader is the film for you.