Review of The Wild Man of the Navidad (2008) by Jason D — 21 Aug 2009

The Wild Man of the Navidad is the supposedly true story based on farmer Dale S. Rogers' (played in the film by the film's co-creator Justin Meeks) journals about a wild man/beast that resides deep within his land as a curse.

Rogers and his ancestors have tried to appease the beast by giving it a meal every night at a certain time and keeping people out of its home, but times get desperate when Rogers must open up the land, after being fired from his job, in order to pay for his handicapped wife's medication.

Sure enough, as soon as hunters start coming into the wild man's lair, they start getting viciously killed in moderately gory fashion. The BEST aspect about this film is the presentation which is a dead pan homage towards the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (whose original co-creator Kim Henkel also produced this film) and just about every Bigfoot film of the 70's.

While watching this film, you almost feel certain it was made in the 70's and not just a couple of years ago. Another interesting note is the usage of actors in this film, which for the most part, is comprised of actual locals and residents of the small Texas town they filmed this movie in.

After watching the movie, I wasn't sure if it was even a monster movie or a character study on these types of people. Hell, after awhile, I started becoming more creeped out by the people than the monster! Aside from that, Meeks and director Graves clearly worked with a very small budget and made do the best they could with it, which was very commendable on their part, because if you "get" what they're trying to show you, you will find yourself enjoying this film a lot.

If not, maybe you should stick with more mainstream horror films. Overall, The Wild Man of the Navidad is one of my favorites to come out this year.