Willow Creek

Good movie!

source: Willow Creek

If it was possible to give 0 stars I would. Complete waste of my time, very boring. Nothing like the trailer set it up to be. Was mostly just them interviewing people, and the rest of the movie was them with the camera facing them and some noises outside the tent. You never get to see "bigfoot". I would definitely not rate this a horror film. I would not be recommending this film to anyone, avoid at all costs, if you do end up watching it you will be disappointed. I love my horror movies, and sadly this does not meet my expectations. I was kind of hoping it would be along the lines of Wolf Creek, but in a found footage way. I never liked found footage films but decided to give it one last attempt and watch this movie.

Not a great fan of found footage films but thought I'd give this one a go, now wish I hadn't bothered! I've just wasted my time watching this stupid film that is classed as a horror which is debatable. The film starts with a couple going to look for big foot and interview various local people which seems to go on forever. I could not believe the tent scene it just went on and on with a few sounds coming from outside the tent. The last ten minutes were pointless and not one bit scary. This is one of the worst films I've seen.

OMD.. where to begin on this utter snooze-fest..whilst actually waiting for Big-fart to turn up in the movie was like waiting in a 50 people long Que for the dentist to pull out all your teeth.. my god i actually wanted Big-fart to drag the entire crew away and me i was that bored. the interviews are so dull the cameraman i swear is nodding off and only being propped up by his equally bored assistant who's praying to be eaten asap by Big-fart anything to kill the boredom! and everyone in it just walks around blabbing crap about the legend and i don't think anyone is even listening..well i sure as hell wasn't after 30 Min's and it takes 67 Min's to get off the ground and its only 77 Min's long and that seemed like 3 hours. i don't think I've yawned so many times in 77 Min's in my life and I've seen some boring sh!t. Bobcat you were funny in Police Academy 2 etc but this was no joke this film suck Big-farts legendary balls and maybe you should not make a sequel to this bore-fest EVER!!..pretty please. if you have seen Blair Witch folks then its this all over again with a new hairy skin and without the witch...basically its A$$ and a hairy one at that. if its hairy big tall things you yearn then go watch King Kong again cause at least you actually see him in the movie for more than 5 Min's unlike this bucket of Ar$e.. pretend you never saw the trailer or the poster and have a better night not being slowly killed with this fart box of a movie.. even Big-fart couldn't be bothered to show up for it!! crap..

If you're looking for a good Bigfoot movie this is the only one that comes to mind. Now, I call it good, not great. It has it's fair share of flaws, but being from the same guy who directed God Bless America and World's Greatest Dad I expected a certain level of quality often not shown to horror movies, and almost never to the found footage genre. This movie handles it's scares with tact and maturity, and even has a very tense scene in a tent. I won't delve into detail as I do think this movie is worth watching. It's certainly nothing new, but it takes the good well established staples of horror, arranges them in a pleasant package, and doesn't have anything that really made it a bad movie... ...until the end. Sadly, without revealing too much, the movie has a rather disappointing, confusing, and unsatisfying ending. It doesn't ruin the movie as a whole, but since it's the last thing you see, a bad ending skews the rest of it in a negative light. This movie was made solidly enough to the point where I can definitely recommend it. Willow Creek isn't the best movie in world, or even the best horror movie, but with all the recent schlock like Devil's Due and Paranormal Activity 5 it stands leagues ahead. I want a sequel to this, one that hopefully solves the problems this one had. TLDR Version: Good, not great. Worth a watch despite it's flaws.

Although I didn't expect much when I planned to watch this film, I did expect, well, a plot. I also expected that the characters would do things for reasons that were discernible to viewers. I expected the characters to act like at least minimally reasonable, functional adults. I expected the Bigfoot "vocalizations" to sound remotely like they could emanate from an animal, instead of from the obvious, contracted "yell-actor" hiding in the bushes. Though hopeful at the start, none of my expectations were realized, except one: After just a few minutes of watching those two on screen, it was almost fun to anticipate their mandatory transition into Bigfoot snacks. This film did break ground in one way. It seems to have started a new genre -- self-contained sequel. Stupid movie sequels are nothing new. However, in this case, rather than take the time to create a movie, and then come back later and make a sequel, the director, surely a busy guy, just glued the sequel onto the main movie. That's right. Viewers get to see the obligatory "scary night in the woods" scene. For what seems a nearly endless amount of time, we're forced to watch those two knuckleheads huddle in a tent with the lights on, certainly attracting whatever they are afraid of. Then "miraculous" survival until daylight, when something interesting could happen. But no. We get the sequel -- another "scary night in the woods" with the same two knuckleheads doing almost the same thing. Well, I guess that's not really fair -- this time the dingbat girl brandishes a stick! The only minor redemption this movie has is its last two minutes, but those are not nearly a good enough reason to sit through the first 78 minutes.

I promised myself several times already I would stop watching so-called "found-footage" horror movies. No matter how interesting and tense they initially appear to be judging by their synopsis or uncanny poster art, you always end up scammed! For "Willow Creek" I made another exception, for two reasons. First and foremost I have an inexplicable weakness for Bigfoot movies, even though experience already taught me there are very few good ones, and secondly because I was curious to watch a film from writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait. Like most people, I only know him from his comical roles during the 1980's – most notably the "Police Academy" sequels – and wasn't even aware that he became a versatile director nowadays. Moreover, Goldthwait came to the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Films to introduce his project and tell a bit more about what he wanted to achieve. Apart from still being a funny guy (everyone ought to hear his Bono impersonation), he definitely also know a thing or two about horror cinema and gave a pretty accurate analysis of the genre. Of course, all this happened before the film begun At first, I must admit that I was very disappointed – infuriated, even – with "Willow Creek" because it was just as dull, clichéd and uneventful as every other dreadful found-footage movie ever made. However, a couple of days later now, it's strangely growing on me. This is definitely a back-to-basics example of the sub genre, very similar to "Blair Witch Project" in fact, but with a much cooler monster. Jim Kessel absolutely wants to prove once and for all that the notorious Bigfoot really exists and heads out to Willow Creek – Bigfoot capital of the world – with a handy-cam and his non-believing girlfriend Kelly. They have a lot of fun at first, munching Sasquatch burgers and mocking the local yokels, but late at night in their tent in the middle of isolated nowhere their laughter quickly fades. With "back-to-basics", I refer to the limited number of protagonists (two people instead of a whole amateur film crew), a very patient and extended introduction to the lead characters and the surrounding and an extreme emphasis on slow-brooding tension and suggestive horror. This last aspect is particularly underlined through an eighteen-minute (18!) monotonous shot of Jim & Kelly anxiously embracing each other in their tent while uncanny sounds and presences lurk outside. Together with a full festival theater, I found this scene very unnerving, but I can't deny it's a powerful and intense sequence. The acting performances of Alexie Gilmore and Bryce Johnson are impressive and the authentic (I think) filming locations are sublime. The climax is dumb, but that also appears to be a found-footage tradition. It's definitely my second favorite title in this totally redundant sub genre, after Barry Levinson's underrated "The Bay".

Terrible movie. Absolutely nothing happens for the first 60minutes of the film. The first 50minutes are fluff of them interviewing residents of the area they're traveling to. Another 20minutes of footage of a light shining on their faces in a tent while they listen to noises outside. The monster supposedly starts attacking, our view of this is someone poking the tent inwards with a stick. The sound effects of the monster were laughable, it sounded like someone making cow noises through a vuvuzela. Then it follows the same pattern of every found footage movie, the next day the woman starts having a meltdown and crying in the forest. The infamous line of "it's the same tree!" from them going round in circles is rehashed from god knows how many of these low budget horror movies. The only interesting thing to happen in the whole movie is in the last 5minutes. No, we don't get to see any monster through the ENTIRE movie, just a clump of hair stuck to a tree, and the 'missing woman' talked about at the beginning by the local residents, suddenly shows up right at the end wearing nothing but a loincloth. Then the guy is dragged off into the woods and killed. You hear his girlfriend screaming for help. Then that's it. That was your movie. At the end it was hinted that the original missing woman had been kidnapped and indoctrinated into the bigfoot society, possibly as a mistaken 'breeding female'. It doesn't make it clear what happens to the female star of the movie, the guys girlfriend, but it's hinted she meets the same fate as the other 'missing woman', being indoctrinated into the bigfoot society as a breeding female. All of the ideas for this movie were stolen from other projects done 2decades before. This was a horrendous attempt by Bobcat Goldthwait at a horror movie, even worse was the lack of any funding that appeared to be available for the film. This would be an embarrassment to hand in even if it was a student project for a film class. Goldthwait needs to stick to comedy, this line of the film industry is not for him, unless he's looking to purposefully end his career.

If you want to see an actual good FF Bigfoot movie. Do not watch Willow Creek. The main actors are annoying and boring. The movie takes about 75% of its life to get any type of suspense going. The FF cinematography is good. There are just too many scenes that should not have been included. Such as the guitar-playing guy, that scene was how long? 10 minutes?! Why? The restaurant scene where they're eating Bigfoot burgers? What? What is the purpose of this....These scenes serve no purpose whatsoever....they do not help build the characters...nor do they help build the "Bigfoot" tension. If anything, they detract from it. How long is their first night scene in the tent....it lasts like 30 minutes....lol why? It was probably the most boring scene of the movie. I do not understand how Bigfoot (the Lost Coast Tapes) is given such a bad rating when that movie is 1000 times better than this pile of rubbish. I have to rate this a 1 to drag the rating down sorry. Overall there were some tense moments but it's a failed execution.