Director: Bobcat Goldthwait.
Starring: Alexia Gilmore, Bryce Johnson.
Running Time: 78 minutes.
Certificate: 15.
Synopsis: A couple – a first time documentarian and an aspiring actress – travel to the original filming site of the infamous Patterson-Gimlin film, which purportedly showed evidence of Bigfoot.
Bobcat Goldthwait is known to many for his erratically voiced hijinks in 80s comedies, most notably the POLICE ACADEMY series. But over the last decade he has made a name for himself as one of the most challenging directors around. His dark comedies which explore the rather unsavoury areas of people and society as a whole have been an absolute riot, especially in the astonishing WORLD’S GREATEST DAD. Surprisingly, though, his latest effort couldn’t be more different, and anybody subscribed to the auteur theory will have great difficulty pinning down the man’s trademarks. That’s because he has entered the world of found footage horror.
Most striking of all is just how easily Goldthwait adapts to the genre. We can only assume he wanted to try his hand at something different and work towards the confines laid out by the genre. This he does very well. He never once breaks the rules by adding music or seemingly impossible shots, but it also means that we rarely see anything on-screen. This is a film that relies purely on the imagination, much like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. In fact, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT provides the blueprints for WILLOW CREEK. Filmmaker Jim (Bryce Johnson) and his supportive girlfriend Kelly (Alexia Gilmore) interview people in the local town before setting out, hearing noises from inside their tent and soon walking around in circles and losing daylight. There are times when it feels as though the word ‘witch’ has simply been dubbed over with ‘Bigfoot’.
Raising the film above many found footage efforts are the two central performances. Johnson is great as the slightly awkward host of his first documentary; it seems as though he can never get things done in a single take. It’s also admirable how Johnson switches personas from feeling very natural when filming footage not for use in his film, and how stiff and uncomfortable he feels as soon as he switches to professional mode. Gilmore on the other hand is the jokey and smiley supportive girlfriend who obviously isn’t too fond of the expedition as a whole but supports the man she loves. She also demonstrates her ability to convey fear at many different levels. It isn’t a sudden screaming fit, but she gradually becomes more unsettled as events start to unravel. Most importantly, the two have chemistry and feel natural. None of their dialogue comes across as scripted and we care for the pair, making the latter half of the film more intense.
Goldthwait understands something that many who venture into found footage fail to, and that’s to make it as real as possible. He does this by hiring genuine locals for the interview segments. Whether they knew this was fiction or not is impossible to gauge. Questions are left unanswered, shots aren’t always clear, and if we were in a world with less communication and information, there is no doubt people would debate the entire film’s authenticity.
Any issues to be had with the film will come down to a dislike of the format in general, those who find it too similar to previous efforts, or those expecting more biting satirical wit from Mr. Goldthwait. Thankfully, the connection felt to the characters as well as some truly terrifying scenes help to make this an enjoyable experience for all the right reasons, with a lengthy single shot of nothing but our protagonists’ upper halves as they listen to noises bringing the fear factor to excruciating odds.
[usr=3] WILLOW CREEK was released in UK cinemas on Friday 2nd May, 2014.
