Willow Creek (film)
Willow Creek is a 2013 independent found footage horror film written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. It stars Alexie Gilmore and Bryce Johnson as a couple who go into the woods of Willow Creek, California looking for material for their documentary on Bigfoot lore. Plot. Set in Humboldt County, California, Jim (Bryce Johnson), a stout believer in Bigfoot, and his girlfriend Kelly (Alexie Gilmore) are traveling to Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California, where Jim plans to shoot his own Bigfoot footage at the site of the Patterson–Gimlin film. The two stop off first in  Willow Creek, the Bigfoot capital of the world, where Jim interviews various locals about Bigfoot. At a restaurant, they notice a missing woman on a poster on the wall. While heading into the forest in search of the Patterson–Gimlin filming location, they encounter a man who angrily tells them to leave, but Jim and Kelly ignore him. They set a camp in the middle of the woods, but after return to it from a swim, they find it trashed. That night they are awakened by mysterious sounds echoing through the woods, and whooping vocalizations. Cowering inside their tent, they  can hear large creatures moving about outside, pushing into and investigating the tent; and the distant sound of a woman crying. The noises grow closer and something hits their tent. Scared, the couple decides to leave at dawn. In the morning, Jim discovers a clump gray fur. They wander in circles through the thick woods while hearing the same noises they heard the night before. During the night, Jim and Kelly encounter a naked woman who was on the missing person poster from Willow Creek. She's gone insane and was taken as a "Forest Bride", and is imitating the  noises of the beings in the forest. An unseen creature attacks them, killing Jim and moving on to Kelly whose cries for help are heard in the distance as she is taken to be another Forest Bride. The movie ends with three whooping vocalizations also heard in the distance. Release and reception. The film was premiered at the 2013 Independent Film Festival of Boston, and subsequently screened within such festivals as Maryland Film Festival. "Willow Creek" has received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 86% (based on 51 reviews). The  website's consensus states: "Writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait's first foray into horror doesn't break any new ground, but it does wring fresh terror from a well-worn genre formula—and offers a few nasty laughs in the bargain."