The Wild Man of the Navidad

Director(s) - Duane Graves (Boneboys) and Justin Meeks (Red on Yella, Kill a Fella)
Starring - Justin Meeks (Headcheese), Stacy Meeks (The Hypostatic Union), and Alex Garcia (From Prada to Nada)
Release Date - 2008
Genre - Horror/Drama
Tagline - "History tells one story. Truth tells another." "Based on the journals of Dale S. Rogers" "From the producer of the 70's horror classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "For years the town of Sublime, Texas was terrorized by a mysterious creature lurking in the nearby woods. The lucky ones lived to tell about it ..."
Format - DVD (Personal Collection)

Rating (out of 5):

    I was in high school when I discovered cryptozoology and the beasts within this bastard science.  Some of the legends were interesting, however, I was captivated by the legend of bigfoot.  I am not saying I believe in the creature, I just find films and documentaries about it entertaining.  A few days ago I was looking through my instant queue on Netflix and noticed I had a few films on the subject.  I looked online for reviews on a few of them and came across this film.  It looked interesting so I ordered it.

     The film follows Dale (Meeks), a Texas man that is forced to take care of his wheelchair bound wife after a car accident.  Dale has a live in assistant, Mario (Garcia), that takes care of his wife when he is not finger banging her or sniffing her panties.  Dale's land is home to an unknown beast and for years he has kept the local townsfolk off his property to keep the monster at bay.  However, after losing his job he opens his gates to hunters, for a price, as a way to pay for his wife's medication.  The beast is extremely territorial and attack the hunters.  The locals form a search party to find the beast before putting a bullet in it's chest.

     This film had so much going for it but failed to be anything more than a mediocre monster flick.   The production team did a great job bringing about the same atmosphere and look of those monster films of the 70's.  Films produced during each decade have their obvious look and feel and this one does an outstanding job keeping the 70's vibe.  The acting is also great by the entire cast, which is surprising because most have no prior acting credits to their name.  The special effects in this film are hit and miss.  The beast and dead animals look great while the kills are horrible.  More work should have been placed on the actual kills in the film than the dead animals.  What I disliked about the film was the storyline.  The film is supposedly based on a true story, however, the film could not make it's mind up on whether it wanted to be a dramatic rendition of that story or a straight forward horror film.  Some films can pull off that dramatic horror film vibe but this one could not.  The first half of the film unfolds like a drama.  The crippled wife being molested by the perverted Mexican while the husband struggles finding a job.  Then the film switches gears and turns into a creature feature with the feel of a slasher.  To me, this just made the first half of the film extremely boring and hard to follow before switching to the horror half.  Overall, this is a mediocre film that offers nothing new for the genre.  The film is entertaining but does not have any replay value.  If you can grab it from Netflix or rent it then go for it.