Here’s a surefire way to get me to attend a screening of your home-grown, no-budget movie: conceive it as an homage to the grimy backwoods horror classics of the ‘70s and put Bigfoot in it. Make it a Texas Bigfoot movie and I’ll be first in line. (I attended the Texas Bigfoot Conference a few years back, and you can read all about it – I know you saw this coming – in Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema.) That’s more or less what first-time feature filmmakers Justin Meeks and Duane Graves have done (with an assist from original Texas Chain Saw Massacre writer/producer Kim Henkel) in Wild Man of the Navidad.
Sure, you could argue that the Wild Man isn’t technically Bigfoot, but like the “Fouke Monster” of The Legend of Boggy Creek (surely an influence on Meeks and Graves), he’s a big, hairy cousin of our friend Sasquatch. Like Boggy Creek and its other '70s ancestors (including Chain Saw), Wild Man purports to be based on a true story, in this case the journals of rancher Dale S. Rogers of the tiny town of Sublime, Texas. Meeks plays Rogers in the film as a troubled man with a catatonic, wheelchair-bound wife who is cared for (and occasionally molested) by chubby, shirtless Mario (Alex Garcia). After losing his day job, Rogers is forced to open up his family’s land to hunters. This causes a bit of a crisis of conscience, since he knows the Wild Man is out there somewhere (he leaves a skinned rabbit on the back porch each night to placate the creature). Sure enough, those who venture out into the bottoms are later found with their internal organs externalized. Along with the local sheriff, Rogers determines to rid the Navidad of this deadly creature once and for all.
Wild Man is set in the '70s, and in many ways, it’s a masterful recreation of the backwoods horror classics of that era, from the stylized opening credits to the near-flawless production design. (Where did they find those pop-top cans of Lone Star?) The supporting cast members are likewise authentic-looking, right down to their tobacco juice-stained beards, although you wouldn’t call any of them actors. They’re all locals who are pretty much playing themselves, and you won't find any Brandos in the rough here, but at least the accents are right on and you can really believe these guys know how to make a "cactus pussy" (don't ask, just trust me). The design of the Wild Man is also ingenious; instead of the usual suit made of carpet remnants, the creature (or man) is draped in the pelts of animals he's killed, so you don't know what he looks like underneath.
The only thing detracting from the illusion that this is a lost drive-in classic from 1974 is the fact that it was shot on digital video, but unfortunately, that's kind of a big deal. This type of movie should look like it was found in rotting film cans dredged up from the bottom of a swamp, and video doesn't come close to capturing the appropriate texture. The choice is certainly understandable - that's how you get a no-budget movie made these days, after all - but it takes suspension of disbelief to a higher degree of difficulty. Still, if you have a soft spot for the backwoods horror of yesteryear, you'll probably get a kick out of Wild Man.
Related:
All-Night Bigfoot Movie Marathon
Take Five: Cryptozoology
