The Wild Man of the NavidadThe Wild Man of the Navidad (2008)
Directed by Duane Graves/Justin Meeks
[this was a review I wrote for UGO.com]
Buy if:
-...you love old, 70s grindhouse faux documentaries like The Legend of Boggy Creek and the Last Broadcast
-...you like Texas style, beer and moonshine guzzling rednecks getting slaughtered by an unseen "monster" in the Texas backwoods
-...you dig those Nimoy hosted "In Search Of" Time Life book shows and paranormal Unsolved Mysteries episodes
Pass if:
-...you're not a fan of blurry monster shots and cheesy gore effects complete with blood splatter on walls and sliced intenstine carnage
-...you hated the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and despise shots of decaying animals and sunsets
-...you're not a fan of bad acting and dialogue that makes you go to sleep
Read the rest of the review here.
Here is where it gets weird. After the review was published yesterday, a user by the name of "bisforbest" posted a comment. He defended the filmmakers for bring back the old grindhouse feel but questioned why I brought up the budget of this film (it was shot on a shoestring).
I love replying back to anybody responding to any of my reviews. I commented back just explaining in more detail what worked well and what didn't. I also said the budget would have helped in better talent, FX effects, etc. Well nothing weird about that so far.
But thanks to Evil Adam who is an editor at UGO.com, did some Encyclopedia Brown-ing (via some Google detective work) discovered that this user *gasp* may or may not be the director of this film, a one Mr. Duane Graves. You can check out the rest of the comments here.
Hmmmm. Well this is getting way too fuckin odd.
Would this director actually cloak himself and pretend to be a "fan of his own movie"? Really? This is some classic cloak and dagger shit which I think is truly unneccesary.
Well you might be asking for some proof? Well Evil Adam discovered that a particular e-mail address is being used by this poster and this e-mail addy can be found all over the web for posts in response to the works of Meeks and Graves (the co-directors of the film).
Coincidence? Hmmm. You decide.
Let me just say that I didn't hate the film (though I gave it a C grade). It's really a great homage to the old flicks of old grindhouse horror docu-style Bigfoot like movies. But due to the acting (locals were used), subpar gore/splatter effects and too many scenes of moonshine drinking, it turned out a little cheesy.
My review echoed the tone of many others from Fangoria, Bloody Disgusting and Dread Central for sure.
If the director is masquerading as a "fan of the Wild Man of the Navidad", that's some sly internet hype scheme he's working. But seriously, no need to do that. The movie has gotten good to great press from the horrorsphere. Just comment on the reviews and thank them for the coverage and press.
That's all I'm looking for.
**UPDATE**
-Johnny over at Freddy in Space posted his 2 cents about this whole thing. Go ahead and check it out.
-I've been doing some IMDB and Facebook investigating. More to come.
-And if somehow I'm 100% wrong about this. I apologize. Evil Adam though, he's not going to apologize. He'd wait until 2012 and the apocalypse before he would say he was wrong. So tough luck.
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