Black Creek is a 2018 horror film about a troubled young man and his brash sister who are terrorized by an ancient, Native-American spirit after they return to their family cabin to spread their father’s ashes.
No one sets out to make a bad movie … unless maybe you’re a producer for Sharknado films. Either way, most independent filmmakers are typically full of inspired and enthusiastic aspiring artists looking to get seen, trying to tell their stories and innovate the art. Most. However, many of these low-budget movies are generic cheaply-made projects designed to capitalize on a trend or, especially with horror, an entire genre. Such is the case with James Crow‘s new film Black Creek, a micro budget thriller that is surely made with good intentions but fails on nearly on all levels to do as it promises. So much so, it’s sort of impossible to take it seriously, and because so, nearly makes it fun. Nearly.
Mike (Chris O’Flyng) and Heather (Brianna Shae) have just lost their father, having died in mysterious ways in the deep woods. The teenagers, feeling they should do good by his death, decide to carry his ashes into the forest near their family cabin and spread them among the trees. They take along Jenna (Leah Patrick), Mike’s crush and a few other friends, looking to make a trip of it, but when they get there, there’s talk of murder at the hands of an ancient Native American spirit, and before long, it’s come for them, possessing them one at a time as it moves from one victim to the next.
While I certainly appreciate the effort here, Crow, who also wrote the screenplay, is clearly working with the barest minimum of a budget and directing a host of several untrained actors, many making their debuts. And with that in mind, there’s a knee-jerk impulse to cut the guy some slack, as these limitations are naturally impeeding. And I can assure, here, they are. Black Creek simply has nothing of interest to make this notable, its old story a retread of a dozen other films in the genre mixed with a disappointing lack of creativity. Early narration is lifeless and without urgency and the actors do little more than simply stand in front of the camera and awkwardly recite their lines. It’s really sort of amusing.
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All of that would be slightly forgivable if only there was some momentum to the project. Scenes cut from one to the other perfunctorily and the cast provide no one of any development to inspire us to stay tuned. There are almost uncountable clichés at play from ‘spooky’ music and unearned jump scares to scary visions and teen sex, making it all very generic. It should be said that Crow is no novice, having a long list of writing and directing credits dating back nearly a decade, and while some of those titles are shorts, it would seem that with Black Creek, the motivation is simply to crank out another cheaply made horror movie for fans of such. And in deed, for fans who do rapidly take to Z-grade horror and get a kick out of movies so-bad-they’re-good flicks, Black Creek might have some potential. I was certainly snickering more than I was frightened (actually I never was). That might be the silver lining in all this and who knows, maybe Crow’s intent was to create a movie that entertains for its low production value rather than for its horror. For that, it succeeds.