Miss those creepy horror films from the ’70s, with the uneven acting, screechy soundtracks and southern fried scares?
“The Wild Man of Navidad” may be the closest we’ll ever get to a “new” ’70s style horror romp.
But while directors Duane Graves and Justin Meeks nail the period detail and atmosphere from the opening sequence, they can’t muster a fraction of the scares or unease films like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” generated.
A welder named Dale (Meeks) just lost his primary gig and fears he won’t be able to support himself and his invalid wife (Stacy Meeks). So he reluctantly decides to open up his land for hunters.
Sounds like a plan, but Dale has been living with a secret for years, one which may come back to haunt him and his neighbors. He’s been keeping a mysterious creature at bay by leaving uncooked carcasses on his back porch to satiate its appetite.
Opening up the land means upsetting that delicate balance, and sure enough the bodies start piling up once Dale lets hunters on his property.
“Navidad” is purportedly based on a true story … or anecdotes from a diary compiled by the real Dale. Take that with a mountain of salt. The back story doesn’t lend much grit to the film.
For horror junkies, “Navidad” is hardcore low budget, but we do get some closeups of internal organs rudely ripped from the bodies of the newly dead.
But the Wild Man himself is a major letdown. Given the budget – and theme of the project – we shouldn’t see so much of him – or it. A “Blair Witch” style avoidance strategy would serve the project better.
All “Navidad” has to offer is atmosphere, but it ladles it on with abundance. The honky tonk soundtrack, the smart compositions, the extreme close ups of actors you’d never see in any other film … it all builds up a sense of a small town far removed from polite society, to be kind.
The uncomfortable closeups show neighbors who live to hunt, drink beer and, apparently, misplace their razors.
Dale emerges as a complex character worth following, but the film lacks enough well-rounded supporting players to bounce off of him.
“The Wild Man of the Navidad” is a painstaking homage to a horror era gone by, but it can’t resurrect the scares those movies left behind.
(Photo: “The Wild Man of the Navidad” stars Justin Meeks, Stacy Meeks – seated – and Alex Garcia)
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I enjoyed this one, but I admit I saw it as less of a “horror” movie than most. I have a suspicion that the gore in it was placed there more to appease the genre hounds. I was never convinced the directors were trying to out-scare the films it paid homage to like “Boggy Creek” and “Creature From Black Lake” – because those weren’t really scary either unless you were 5 years old when they came out. It was pretty obvious the suspense and atmosphere were what they were after, and like you said, it has ladles of that. Cool movie.
I saw this film because it claims to hearken back to the early
Seventies cult gore fests. They accomplished that. The film looks
exactly like it was shot in 1973. They mainly accomplished this with
poor quality film, bad lighting, bad sound and poor scripting. But it
looks exactly like an early Seventies slasher film.
Bacically, there’s this Sasquatch-type creature living in the river
bottom near this Texas town. The dumb Mexican loses his job and begins
opening the “bottoms” up to hunting. The creature gets shot by this
moonshine guzzling redneck. It survives and goes on a rampage.
First, the creature looks really bad. Basically, they hung this guy
with animal skins and gave him two deer antlers to use as weapons. He
guts people with them and heaves their victles out of their bodies
onto the dirt. But he looks like some guy hung with deer hides.
There’s lots of unnecessary perversity. Like, there’s this wheelchair
bound woman who cannot speak. The Mexican helper-person likes to
strangle her until she’s unconscious and molest her. I can’gt see
where this savagery fits into the story. It sure is disturbing to
watch though.
I shut the film off about 2/3 of the way through. I shut it off right
when the townspeople were getting ready to “clean out” the bottoms.
They had all kinds of guns, dogs and moonshine. I couldn’t watch any
more.
I LOVE Seventies cult horror films but avoid this piece of sheeeeeit.
It looks like they shot this film for about ten grand. Then it gets
released onto video? These guys are laughing all the way to the bank.
Don’t get suckered in.