REVIEW - WIllow Creek (2013)

Let me preface this by saying straight out, by and large I am a huge fan of "Bobcat" Goldthwait's directorial work. SHAKES THE CLOWN was a brave, fucked up film, and THE WORLD'S GREATEST DAD stands as one of star Robin William's shining cinematic moments, right up ther with "Mork"s work in THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP. GOD BLESS AMERICA got a little rant-y for me, with it's extended monologue's, but absolutely echoed my thoughts on modern culture, and in the end, it sits on my shelf in the permanent collection.
As anyone who has read my writing, or listened to the podcasts knows, I'm also a bona fide "horror kid", the scarey stuff being my axle, and having served as my introduction to movies. Full stop.
So imagine my excitement when Goldthwait announced he wasn't only going to do a horror-themed found footage film (another sub-genre I admit to being a sucker for, I said it!), but was going to center it around the criminally unused Bigfoot lore.

WILLOW CREEK is simple in it's premise. A young couple sets out into the wilderness to track Bigfoot, along a trail notorious for sightings and incidents involving the cryptozoological boogeyman. Alexie Gilmore and Bryce Johnson give solid, credible performances as Kelly and Jim, who set out on the real-life trail where the controversial yet undeniably iconic 1967 Patterson-Gimlin footage of the One with Big Feet was caught.
Kelly and Jim encounter resistance, and downright hostility from locals as they make their way to, and finally enter onto the trails' head.
As par for course in found footage movies, we get the obligitory padding, but it makes sense in the milieu Goldthwait is working in. As things begin to heat up, we get a lot of Corman-esque what-you-don't-see-is-scarier kind of budget saving tricks. Ok, that's cool, I'm still down for this ride. Then...nothing really happens. There is a taught, extended 20 minute scene, one shot with no edits, in which Kelly and Jim sit in their tent mortified, as something obviously big, dangerous, and obviously not of the local hick variety, rummages around outside, mere feet away. Again, the acting is completely convincing. Sadly though, at this point I personally needed a glimpse of something...anything. A hairy hand. A whispering shadow in the dark, disappearing into the dark foliage. But nope.
The film, to be fair, does ramp up in the last 5 minutes, and the semi-explanation given to the lore is indeed a little stunning. But, WILLOW CREEK sits in the "noble attempt, but too little too late" category for me. Still, it does understand the horror genre better than Kevin Smith ever will (if we must compare funnymen making scary flicks, a little unfair, but there you have it), and it respects it's subject matter absolutely. In that regard, WILLOW CREEK is not a failure. Looking at it as something of a watershed, it is what it is. As far as being a bar-setter, as I'd hoped it would be, as far as the sub-genre of Bigfoot films? Nah.

If you want to see what i consider to be a more succesful foray into furry horror, see EXISTS, which is also a semi-recent release, and doesn't skimp on the monsters.


Rating: 2.75 out of 5

   


Here is the aforementioned Patterson-Gimlin footage as well...

   

~Boris Lugosi