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A little bit of clean up for Alexie’s film WILLOW CREEK where she played the part of Kelly, a woman who along with her Bigfoot enthusiast boyfriend Jim (Bryce Johnson) go on a trip to Six Rivers National Forest in California where the infamous footage Bigfoot was filmed by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin of the “mythical” Sasquatch. The film was directed by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait.
Good news! I’ve finally gotten Alexie’s work as Kelly in the Bobcat Goldthwait found footage film WILLOW CREEK up in the gallery. There are three things including the main film caps, plus the extras…that aren’t much. The DVD/Bluray were a standard release with minimal extras. The upside is the screencaps for the main film are in 720p therefore a resolution of 1280X720 as are the HD trailer caps. The downside is the extras are in standard form with a resolution of 640×360. I couldn’t get any better quality than that without the pixels being blown or the quality being too blurry. Sorry about that.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I loved this movie with a capital “L”. I’m not all that fond of the found footage genre, however, this film is an exception. I love the premise as well as loving both Alexie (who wouldn’t) and Bryce Johnson as Jim. Bobcat Goldthwait knew what to do with this film. What was so good about it was the lore it was based upon. The infamous Patterson/Gimlin footage from 1972 was shown all over the world as proof of Sasquatch’s existence, however, there was plenty of scorn going around about the validity of the footage. I remember seeing this first on an episode of the Leonard Nimoy series In Search Of back in the mid seventies. I thought all the quirky characters including many in the area playing themselves added a bit of realism to the film. The draw though has to be the seventeen minute single camera shot toward the end of the film with Kelly and Jim waiting out the night as they are visited by what appears to be a Bigfoot. The rest of the film is just plainly delicious and the ending is unexpected so that when it does happen, it sort of shocks one. Though it does give a whole new meaning to the term “Forest Bride.” All I can say is poor Kelly. Alexie is just amazing in this and the audio commentary on the disc is so hilarious as Alexie is joined by Bobcat and Bryce, who is a Bigfoot aficionado.
I have a really good interview with WILLOW CREEK director Bobcat Goldwait. Nothing really about Alexie except for the mention she’s in the film. Enjoy.
How to Scare People
Willow Creek: Bobcat Goldthwait Has a Bigfoot for You
BIGFOOT ARE GIANT APE-MEN who live at the fringes of our so-called civilization, and when one eats you, no one will believe it. So learn Kelly (Alexie Gilmore) and Jim (Bryce Johnson) in Willow Creek when they visit the notorious “Patterson-Gimlin site,” where, in 1967, two men claimed to have filmed Bigfoot.
Willow Creek is a mostly improvised found-footage horror movie that was shot on location—combined with the talents of Gilmore and Johnson and director Bobcat Goldthwait, that sparseness lends the film a surprising level of intensity. Goldthwait’s mostly known for comedies, but his past directorial work (like World’s Greatest Dad and God Bless America, along with episodes of Chappelle’s Show and Maron) boasts a keen eye for discomfort. He uses it to excellent effect in Willow Creek.
MERCURY: How did the project get started?
BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT: Well, I knew I wanted to do a Bigfoot movie, and then when I actually went to Willow Creek, I changed my ideas. Originally I was going to do a comedy, but then it just seemed to lend itself to doing a suspense movie.I didn’t want to do a movie that was making fun of people who believed in Bigfoot. I consider myself a weirdo and an outcast, so I’m not about to pick on other people who are perceived that way. The goal was to try to make these people believable and characters you empathize with before terrible things happen to them. I think a lot of [horror directors] almost seem to resent the characters, and I wanted you to care about them.
How remote were the locations? Were you out in the middle of nowhere?
Oh my god, we actually went to the Patterson-Gimlin site, so we were. The town [Willow Creek] is 11 hours from LA, and then when you get to Bluff Creek, it’s about a two-and-a-half-hour drive down a 17-mile dirt road. So there’s nothing around. We saw mountain lions when we were filming. There was no craft service or hotel or anything like that.I thought, “Why are we filming this out in the middle of the woods? We should just do this in a hotel parking lot.” But I knew that in order to get the audio right that we’d have to do it out [there]. A lot of the sounds you hear in the movie were recorded live. Subconsciously, you’re not even aware of it, but the absence of planes or faintly heard traffic really added to the suspense.
There were only about 70 edits in the whole movie. There’s always someone turning the camera on or turning it off. I always have a problem with edited found-footage movies, because who “found” this? Just a creep who said “Hey, that’s sad your family died, but if we re-edit it there’s a tremendous picture here.”
Coming from a comedy background, what did you learn shooting a horror film?
That making people laugh and scaring them are really similar. There’s the misdirect, you know? You laugh at something because it’s not happening the way you’d perceive it would happen. Your mind tries to jump ahead. Turns out scaring people is the same thing. You set ’em up and then you make a twist.
Bobcat Goldthwait is showing WILLOW CREEK at the Syracuse Film Festival. The film stars Alexie as part of a couple who go into the infamous woods to try to find proof of the bipedal creature. The article to fallow.
Bobcat Goldthwait shows ‘Willow’ Creek’ at Syracuse film festival
Writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait’s movie “Willow Creek” is screened during the Syracuse International Film Festival on Saturday, October 5, 2013, at the Palace Theater. Appearing on screen are actors Alexie Gilmore and Bryce Johnson.
