Jim (Bryce Johnson) is a documentary filmmaker who has set out to track
down Bigfoot, starting at the location where a sighting of the creature
was first documented. He's accompanied by his girlfriend Kelly (Alexie
Gilmore), who doesn't believe in Bigfoot but believes in him enough to go
on this trip with him. Curiously enough, in the town next to the sighting
site, nobody actually believes in Bigfoot either, even if there is Bigfoot
paraphernalia everywhere, there are Bigfoot paintings on the walls, some
quite bizarre, there's a Bigfoot statue, a Bigfoot museum, a Bigfoot
bookstore - and whatnot. But everyone warns them to go "up
there", to the actual site, because there are all kinds of threats
out there, from poachers and marihuana farmers to bears and mountain
lions. Plus, one ought to come properly prepared ... Of course, Jim and
Kelly go to the site anyways, but naturally they have underestimated
pretty much everything, they get lost, their tent is thrashed by something
while they're out, and their first night in the (still habitable) tent is
accompanied by weird noises that might or might not be Bigfoot but that
scare the shit out of them. Next day, they decide to leave in a hurry, but
lose their way even more ... and suddenly they realise they're running
away from ... well, something. It all ends with a very large topless
woman (?), our heroes being knocked out, and screams of pain ... Willow
Creek starts out rather amusingly with an ironic look at the (in lack
of a better word) Bigfoot subculture and a town being based on the Bigfoot
legend nobody there even believes in. And it does succeed in introducing
two likeable leads as well - and everything's enjoyably light in tone,
promising this film to be something more than another Blair
Witch Project knock-off - but once our heroes are in the woods,
the film seems to run out of ideas, as these scenes seem to be low-rent
carbon copies of the earlier film, with the irony that made the first half
of the movie so enjoyable disappointingly absent now, and a prolonged
scene of our leads sitting in the tent listening to the noises of the
night in just one single shot just adds too little suspense to the whole
thing to make the finale really tight. And the ending ... well, it just
makes no sense at all.
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