Review of Willow Creek (2013) by Hugo G — 05 Jun 2014

Something of a true spiritual heir to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, director Bobcat Goldthwait's WILLOW CREEK is a very worthy addition to the pantheon of the bigfoot and the found footage horror subgenres.

It distinguishes itself from most other found footage flicks in the way it takes itself just seriously enough for the eventual chills and suspense to hit home, but not so much that it can't have a little fun beforehand.

It's quite charming in the way it gently pokes fun at the bigfoot subculture in the early going, and the interplay between the two leads is genuinely enjoyable. Goldthwait, a comedian himself, mines plenty of humor from the concept of bigfoot hunting, but - most surprisingly - he proves to be quite adept at building a feeling of dread.

The humor in the first half of the film pays off in a huge way with a nearly tour-de-force single take sequence set inside a tent; this scene ratchets up the tension and fear to wonderfully intense levels, and it's aided in no small part by the extraordinarily effective sound design, which turns every snap of twigs and rustling of bushes into harbingers of something very unpleasant to come.

It's a bravura sequence, and while the film (which continues on for a bit after that) never quite hits that level again, it's enough to carry the movie over the finish line. People, I'm sure, will have issues with the ultimate resolution of the story, but I found it frightening enough to not be anticlimactic.

If this movie is any indication, Goldthwait has a real knack for the genre, and it'll be interesting to see if he ever returns to it, or if WILLOW CREEK is simply a one-off. Either way, it's one of the most effective (and funny!) found footage thrillers of the last few years.