My new column, The Bigfoot Files, debuts today as a regular feature on the HorrorAddicts.net website. I celebrated by purchasing a Bigfoot Rescue Kit.

I’m excited about the column because Bigfoot, as I write in the first chapter, is “a top-five inspiration for my fiction writing alongside the books The Lord of the Rings and Boy’s Life and the movies Halloween (1978) and Babe (1995).”

The first chapter is titled “The Idea of Bigfoot,” and I write about my interest in Bigfoot and the famous Patterson-Gimlin film that allegedly shows an actual Bigfoot in the trees of California in 1967. The purpose of the column is to explore Bigfoot in film and fiction as a horror icon. I’ll review the movies and books where Bigfoot is a featured character.

In the second chapter of The Bigfoot Files, I’ll review my favorite horror novel featuring a Bigfoot titled Dweller by Jeff Strand. Released in 2010, the book was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award and chronicles a tragic friendship between human and beast that lasts six decades.

There are so many films — mostly B movie creature features — where Bigfoot is the monster. However, the most popular Bigfoot films are arguably a pair of comedies.

One is the heartfelt 1987 live-action movie Harry and the Hendersons. It stars John Lithgow as the father of a family whose car hits a Bigfoot. He takes it home, thinking the creature’s dead, but it’s not. Harry and the Hendersons grossed about $50 million in theaters worldwide, which was a nice haul in the ’80s.

The other is last year’s animated Smallfoot. It’s about a Yeti who tries to prove to his tribe that humans exist. It grossed about $214 million in theaters worldwide.

Bigfoot also appears in written form with tons of books about the beast. On the fiction front, horror writer Hunter Shea is probably the most popular cryptid writer with a handful of novels featuring variations of Bigfoot. I’m about halfway through Shea’s Swamp Monster Massacre, and it’s awesome. You can bet I’ll be reviewing all of his Bigfoot books in upcoming chapters of The Bigfoot Files.

I’m excited about the column, and I want to thank HorrorAddicts.net creator Emerian Rich (a talented author in her own right) for allowing me to write about my favorite legend for her website.

Check out the debut of The Bigfoot Files here.