WILLOW CREEK

Stars: Alexie Gilmore, Bryce Johnson, Peter Jason and Tom Yamarone.
Writer/director: Bobcat Goldthwait 

Rating: 3.5/5

Having displayed a stylish eye and intellectual voice with his fierce filmic tirades on America’s ugly obsession with fame, parental dysfunction and sexual peccadillos, Bobcat Goldthwait has earned the right to get a little bit silly with his latest film, the Bigfoot-hunting/found-footage romp Willow Creek.

But even in steering away from issue-based social satires to giggly genre thriller, Goldthwait exhibits a technical skill and ease with relationship politics that belies the material. The ex-Police Academy funnyman has emerged as one of the most unique and interesting contemporary independent filmmakers, thanks to his skill with such edgy material as God Bless America (2011), World’s Greatest Dad (2009) and Sleeping Dogs Lie (2006). One senses that Goldthwait penned the Willow Creek script not so much to indulge in genre elements (which he handles with a pro’s touch) but more to explore the emotional intimacy between the leads, which ultimately result in bracingly effective scares.

Those leads are the wonderful Alexie Gilmore as the sharply observant, lovely every-girl archetype, Kelly and Bryce Johnson as Jim, a wound-up boy-man all giddy over his first serious foray into Sasquatch forest. Determined to revisit the site at Bluff Creek in northern California where Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin captured ‘that’ footage of an alleged bigfoot on October 20, 1967, Jim has dragged Kelly along to share in the experience, despite being fully aware of her utter disbelief regarding all things mythical in the woods. Goldthwait captures their fun, friendly banter and sweet, sexy chemistry (plus a hint of big-city arrogance) with a deft touch; both actors (longtime collaborators with the director) are entirely engaging and endearing.

After the obligatory scenes found in this type of wilderness thriller (eccentric locals, including a memorable hillbilly singer/songwriter, warn them away; tough-guy woodsman threatens them), Jim and Kelly find themselves deep in thick terrain and growing increasingly ill at ease with their surroundings. The slow-burn storytelling will frustrate gorehounds after blood and guts action but Goldthwait rewards his audience with a gripping 19-minute, single-take night time sequence that is gleefully nerve-shredding. The pair stumbles through another day, disoriented and frightened, until another night descends…

Goldthwait has yet to have a directing career backslide, so Willow Creek does not represent the energising found-footage jolt that The Bay did for Barry Levinson or sxtape did for Bernard Rose. But the film does confirm that in the hands of a skilful filmmaker, the much-maligned genre still has a great deal to offer. Comparisons are unavoidable to the grand-pappy of backwoods handheld mayhem, The Blair Witch Project, but Goldthwait brings enough inventive freshness and convincing terror to the format for Willow Creek to stand on its own two (big)feet.