HUNTING GROUNDS (aka VALLEY OF THE SASQUATCH) (2015) movie review

Hunting Grounds (aka Valley of the Sasquatch) (2015) d. John Portanova (USA)

If you go down to the woods today
You’re sure of a big surprise.
If you go down to the woods today
You’d better go in disguise!


-- “Teddy Bear’s Picnic”

The award-winning* creature feature Hunting Grounds opens, predictably enough, with a hunter (Bill Oberst, Jr.) walking in the forest. Writer/director John Portonova highlights these opening scenes with a haunting score, beautiful scenic shots, and sounds of nature that craft the environment as being rich, deep, and honestly creepy. It’s when the hunter hears a roar that sounds like a living avalanche that I go, NOPE! At this point, any other person would leave Nature where it is, get in the car, and head to the nearest comfort of home... but our guy keeps on trekking, implying there is something in those woods that he is after.

GUT (2012) movie review

Gut (2012)  d. Elias (USA)

Jason Vail is an attractive model citizen: good father, husband, co-worker, etc. whose relationship with former childhood friend Nicholas Wilder has become strained, owing mostly to the latter’s arrested state of adolescence and juvenilia. However, Wilder finds a way to appeal to his buddy’s more prurient side when he locates what appears to be a series of snuff films showing women being eviscerated, a diversion that slowly turns into an obsession for both.