Judy, Judy, Bigfoot: Take Dump 2/13/26

The semi-regular posts formerly known as Blurbing For The Weekend will now be known as Take Dump. The content won’t be changing, but I was tired of debating whether it was all blurbs or sometimes blogs. And while I fantasize about a pre-digital economy, where maybe I’d have a weekly column in a local periodical, it was unhelpfully arbitrary to hook these grabbags to Fridays. Take Dumps can come when they come, and need less space in the headline, too.

Do you remember that hot minute where everybody was going on about how under-appreciated Judy Greer was? Partly inspired by her memoir I Don’t Know What You Know Me From: Confessions Of A Co-Star? Can you believe that was over a decade ago, when she played sidelined moms in Jurassic World, Ant-Man, and Tomorrowland? I bring all this up because I recently listened to the book Devolution by Max Brooks, which predominantly consists of journal entries credited to Kate Holland, a modest accountant living in an isolated “green” community near Mt. Rainier. Holland, voiced by Greer, shares how she, her husband, and their neighbors deal with the consequences of the Rainier’s unexpected eruption, including the violent arrival of a family of Bigfeet, also desperate to survive.

One of the highest compliments I can give the book is that, only after racing to Wikipedia, curious to learn more about the bard who crafted this gripping yarn, did I discover that Max Brooks, author of Devolution and World War Z, is also the son of Mel Brooks. Max, the guy who helped dad make those cute COVID lockdown videos! I can’t believe I missed this, though their last name is common enough that I wasn’t pushed to assume. Speaking of lockdown, Devolution came out in late 2020, which might be why I don’t recall any hype or discussion. Most people, myself included, probably didn’t need a fantasy of forced isolation and exceptionally uncertain tomorrows.

I enjoyed the movie adaptation of World War Z, but have yet to read the source material. I also haven’t read Bram Stoker’s Dracula, so this was my first experience of a “found” horror novel, pieced together by fictional interviews, journal entries, and observations by its “compiler.” The audiobook makes terrific use of the format, Brooks playing “himself” (as does Terry Gross!), with Nathan Fillion, Jeff Daniels, Kate Mulgrew and Steven Weber among those playing supporting characters in supporting documents. As with a found-footage movie, it takes a suspension of disbelief to imagine someone being so diligent about capturing the trauma around them. For a CPA merely journaling at the suggestion of her therapist, Holland does thorough, detailed, agent-worthy work. Especially if these are rough drafts. 

That conceit aside, Devolution is a remarkably layered tale. The community’s mix of utopian idealism and bourgeois vanity, fostered by a tech visionary and his yoga-livestreaming wife, would be entertaining enough without the volcano, which mostly deepens the schadenfreude and amusement. But once the situation turns truly nightmarish, beyond the limits of just desserts for blinkered hubris, Brooks effectively exploits both the increasing familiarity of environmental disaster and the more unpredictable threat of fantastical apemen. The metaphors and connotations take a surprising turn, made blunt by Mulgrew’s interlude and shaded by Fillion’s conclusion (no spoilers, but the book is arguably prescient about more recent societal breakdowns than COVID, too). Brooks does such a good job of mixing modern observational humor and horror’s ability to explore humanity in crisis that, once I found out his lineage, I couldn’t help but think about how proud Dad must be. 

If you’d like to celebrate Judy Greer, but aren’t up for hours of narrated diary entries, I’d recommend Good Boy, a 2020 Blumhouse film released as part of Hulu’s Into The Dark series. Not to be mistaken for 2019’s comedy Good Boys, or the 2022 Norwegian thriller Good Boy, or the 2025 American horror film Good Boy, or the British/Polish thriller Good Boy that will understandably be released as Heel next month, this Good Boy concerns Greer as a downtrodden reporter having a hard enough time in our digital economy without her biological clock going off. Encouraged to get out of her head by adopting a dog, she initially finds the responsibility and affection entailed rejuvenating. Eventually, well…did you see George Romero’s Monkey Shines? This film is also about unhinged emotional transfer between owner and pet. Greer’s terrific, and I enjoyed twists like a young aspiring influencer who’s neither insincere nor idiotic. Similarly against expectation, Steve Guttenberg gets in some good ones as her amiably awful editor. FIVE BAGS OF POPCORN.

If you’d like to think about Bigfoot, but aren’t up for a whole novel, I’d recommend the recent film Found Footage: The Making Of The Patterson Project. Produced by Radio Silence (who brought us the VHS series, Abigail and Ready Or Not), the movie is admittedly a bait and switch. Found Footage’s “footage” comes from a European film crew documenting novice young American filmmakers making a found footage movie inspired by the infamous Patterson-Gimlin footage of Bigfoot. The shoot is already chaotic thanks to the predictable naïveté and neuroses of the ambitious not-yet-professionals involved, before a horror wholly unrelated to Bigfoot (but familiar to found footage horror) is unleashed. Worth it just for when they realize the guy playing the videographer can’t shoot for shit. FIVE BAGS OF POPCORN.

Strange Harvest is a faux-documentary about a serial killer filmed doing grotesque, inexplicable things, not unlike the Hell House, LLC movies. While it’s the antithesis of a cult classic like Lake Mungo, I do enjoy watching “experts” and “cops” give stilted talking-head interviews, intercut with violent footage that would instantly make this story the biggest of the year. It’s like a 30 For 30 episode about a basketball team that wore flubber on their shoes, or won a championship thanks to a ghost. There’s also an amusing irony to this kind of gruesomeness, however absurd or workmanlike, inherently being more tasteful than anything on Investigation Discovery. FOUR BAGS OF POPCORN.

To The Devil The Daughter stars Richard Widmark as an impressively affable author of occult research, cornered at his book party by an anxious stranger (Denholm Elliott). Elliott wants Widmark to pick up his daughter at the airport and keep watch over her. Seems she’s a nun in a Satanic cult, which understandably has Dad worried. Widmark's smirking author, apparently bored with the party and perhaps seeking inspiration for the next book, picks up the babysitting gig, to his agent’s valid chagrin.

The daughter (an unconscionably cast teenage Natassja Kinski), is under the spell of Christopher Lee’s stone freak of an excommunicated Catholic priest. Kinski and Widmark seem more annoyed than anything, and reportedly realized during shooting that this was going to wind up exploitative trash. The author of the original novel refused to let Hammer Films ever adapt his work again, but Lee - who championed the material - sure sells his end of the product. Much of the movie is him reducing people to blubbering messes via phone. Spoiler: Daughter ends with someone throwing a rock, then a photo negative still, and, finally, a bible quote. THREE BAGS OF POPCORN.

Everyone who'd know says Books Of Blood, another Hulu horror exclusive from 2020, pales in comparison to the Clive Barker anthology of the same name. I believe it, but I still enjoy the movie in my ignorance. The first story involves Britt Robertson as a troubled runaway with misophonia. The second has Anna Friel as randy professor mourning her young son and fascinated by the handsome stud who claims a psychic gift. Yul Vazquez plays an exasperated loanshark in the third, understandably pissed about having to tie the more poignant tales together when he just wants some fucking money. Aside from one extreme bit of flesh rendering, Blood is way more Tales From The Darkside than Hellraiser. But I’ve watched every episode of the Creepshow revival twice, so… POPCORN CLASSIC.

My popcorn ratings for movies are explained here. If there's something else spooky or starring Judy Greer you'd like me to consider, send those suggestions along to anthonyisright at gmail dot com. I might even give those last Halloween movies a another try if asked nicely.