If you are looking for a slow-burner from start, are a fan of vintage-looking indie-horror without cheap scares but a bit of gore, add The Wild Man of the Navidad, a film from 2008 getting a rerelease, to your queue and let it take you on a journey through rural Texas where a wild beast, which no one cares where it came from or how it was born, is running loose.

Allegedly based on the recently acquired journals of Texan Dale S. Rogers, this vintage horror tale narrates the veracious, harrowing story of the rural Texas community of Navidad whose residents were terrified for years by a mysterious creature inhabiting the nearby woods. Some do not believe in its existence, while some of those who have had their encounter with it are terrified of their experiences as survivors.

The title of The Wild Man of the Navidad threw me off by thinking this was going to be a Christmas Horror film— considering “Navidad” means Christmas in Spanish. After watching it, I was disappointed because it wasn’t what I was expecting, but at the same time I was disgusted by how gruesome and violent it is. I am between that fine line where you cannot decide if it is a bad film due to the lack of energy, or if it is a good film for knowing how to take advantage of all its resources with a plot that shows a bit of complexity— or maybe it is a film so bad that in the end it can be good for the entertainment it gives you during a Sunday night.

The film replicates a very unique style of filming from 70’s Westerns that only shines for doing so. You can see the effort invested to keep the story as real as possible with a cast that adapts to the inhabitants of the rural area where it was conceived. There is no pretense of keeping a stereotype alive since the plot feeds on it to give life to a script that, although at times it seems to make no sense due to the number of topics it deals with, it is more or less structured to give it a decent outcome.

The special effects are poor, but you enjoy them quite a bit whenever the creature starts tearing up its victims. The only thing that can be disappointing is the design of the beast they fear and seek— it is simply a person with several furry blankets on top who is running through the forest in search of their next victim.

The Wild Man of the Navidad is a throwback to the simple portrait of the independent classics. It has good elements as well as bad elements: from holes in its plot and details that are out of place— it’s not flawless, but it seems possible to charm the right audience.

5 OUT OF 10 BONES