Blair Bigfoot Project.
I thought that director Bobcat Goldthwait’s 2011 film God Bless America was one of the most underrated films of the last five years so I was pretty excited about his first foray into horror.
Willow Creek sees a well acted and believable couple searching the North American woods for any evidence of the mythical creature Bigfoot. This is all shot using shaky, but high quality found footage, and being set in the woods invites all sorts of comparisons to the king of found footage movies, The Blair Witch Project. To his credit Goldthwait does nothing to try and separate the two films instead accepting that two films about people becoming lost in the woods are inevitably going to evoke similar scenes. There are notable and important differences that set Willow Creek aside and stop it from just being a straight up Blair Witch rip off however. Firstly there is one really long, continuous, tension building scene that doesn’t appear to cut at any point. This is quite unlike anything I have seen in horror before in terms of realism. Secondly there are definitely no fucking Bigfoots in The Blair Witch Project.
Making a horror film about Bigfoot is a pretty ballsy move as most people now think of the lovable Sasquatch portrayed in Harry and the Hendersons rather than the terrifying humanoid image from the past. Unfortunately this risk doesn’t quite work out for Goldthwait. Even with a running time of less than 80 minutes the pay off isn’t worth the wait and a half-hearted attempt at ambiguity at the end is not enough to save Willow Creek either.
An interesting piece of work from Goldthwait and worth watching for that one long scene I mentioned earlier but if you want to see a really messed up Bigfoot film then try Drawing Flies instead.