Willow Creek

Dir: Bobcat Goldthwait

2013

**

Bobcat Goldthwait is an awesome writer and director, his two previous films; World's Greatest Dad and God Bless America are two of the most underrated but best examples of the best of modern satire, so my expectations were high, even though his venture into the found footage horror sub-genre was something of a puzzling surprise. I think I had hoped that he would do something clever with it, give the genre a satirical twist and maybe send it up a little, rather than just make a quick cheap horror to cash in on. I don't think either is true but I hope he made lots of money from Willow Creek and uses it to make much better films. I'm not the biggest fan of found footage horrors, they have a place but I feel the genre has been exhausted. Goldthwait brings nothing new to the table with Willow Creek, other than the fact he is the first director to make a film about chasing Big Foot (or Sasquatch if you'd prefer) using this style of filming. What I will give him credit for however is the story and character development. It does look and feel like you'd imagine a piece of found footage to be like. There isn't too much wobbly camera action and the jumps of scares are limited and never wasted. The biggest problem with it is that it is just okay. It's fine. Nothing more than that. It ticks all the boxes, is formulaic and predictable but is never over cooked. There are moments of interests along the story's life-span but Goldthwait gambles everything on the film's conclusion, which is a risky move that I'm not sure pays off. It is open to interpretation somewhat, which is a good thing in my opinion (I'm sure many others disagree) and I'm torn between two lines of thinking. The only problem is that whether either is true, neither is particularly impressive or handled well and I'm not sure whether either is sufficient pay off for sitting through an hour and a half of very little action. The film is 79 minutes long and I don't feel my time was well spent watching it. It's a good effort for a horror/found footage debut but it's a bitter disappointment given Goldthwait's talent and ability. If it were a brand new director I might suggest they showed promise but really, the most positive thing I can really say of it is that I've seen worse, which I don’t think is quite good enough.