Goatsucker

Viewed on Amazon Prime

 

Goatsucker? Chupacabra? To-may-to, Toe-mah-to

 

As you may be able to guess, the main reason I selected this film was because of its interesting title, Goatsucker, which is the literal translation of the Spanish term “chupacabra”. A chupacabra is a mythic creature which supposedly preys on livestock, particularly goats. While I was somewhat familiar with the chupacabra legend, and the literal translation of its name, I can’t recall ever hearing anyone actually use the term ‘Goatsucker’ to describe the creature. So, the first thing that was so weird to me about this film was that people use the term ‘Goatsucker’ almost exclusively instead of Chupacabra when referring to this creature. I have no idea why. Before I started watching the movie I had assumed that the use of the slightly more lighthearted name meant that the movie would have a comedic tone, but that turned out to not be the case at all as “Goatsucker” is primarily a character drama set against the backdrop of a cryptozoological hiking tour.

   

The film opens with a typical sequence: a young woman is chased through the woods. She unsuccessfully tries to get into a cabin and then successfully gets murdered by an off screen beast (we see a claw but nothing else). It was a standard opening for what I thought would be a standard monster movie, but the actual core of the movie was a bit different than what I expected.

 

The basic premise of the movie is that a group of hikers sign up for the “Goatsucker” trail hiking tour.

 

The group consists of Alan, a young man who is trying to get away from it all, Pam, a middle aged woman who is a self professed skeptic that loves cryptid hunts, Wayne, an alcoholic who has a dark and mysterious past, Eugene (imagine a guy named Eugene, you probably just pictured what the character looks like) who is short, dorky, fat and timid, and Rhonda, an attractive young woman (you can tell because the camera keeps zooming in on her butt) with connections to another hiker. It is quickly established that these characters have complex interrelationships and not everyone is who they appear to be.

 

When the guide for this tour goes missing a replacement guide, Heidi, is ordered to take the group on this excursion though she is unfamiliar with this hike. While on the trail the group gets separated and Heidi goes missing, forcing the group to try and make it out of the woods without turning on each other. Also a subplot develops where a woman enters the forest to hunt down the Goatsucker because she claims her boyfriend was murdered by it two years prior to the film.

 

So I have something to admit. I was expecting this movie to be really bad. I judged the book by its cover and said, “A low budget movie about a Goatsucker? How could that work?” And on this I must admit some fault. Not everything works, but a bit more works than I thought it would and it leads to the movie being more interesting than I initially gave it credit for. The movie is not perfect by any stretch of the word, but the central character drama provides a decent framework for a story.

 

Unfortunately, the movie never really evolves past that initial framework. Although the plot is full of twists and turns, it sometimes feels like the story is struggling under its own weight as the original story idea gets more and more complicated. Character twists happen with shocking frequency and these twists occasionally feel very contrived and unbelievable. It certainly doesn’t help that the writer (who is also director/producer/actor for the film) put more emphasis on having characters with shocking twists than on having characters with understandable and relatable backstories that a viewer could connect with. These are all very “fictiony” characters.

 

However, this does leave a lot to say about the movie that is positive. While I critique the writing, I can recognize a great deal of ambition and desire to create a thrilling story. It is too often that microbudget movies are made by people who don’t even seem to try and push the boundaries of what they’re able to do and I need to step back and recognize that what has been accomplished for this film is pretty impressive given the budget, which I believe was around 1000 dollars. I like the tense atmosphere that the team succeeds in creating and this is one of a few microbudget movies where being lost in the woods is exciting and not just boring filler.

 

The sequences with the group lost in the woods and turning on each other were for the most part quite good, so much so that I wish this movie had no monster at all and was just about a group of people imploding and turning on each other. That’s my main issue with the story, that it seems the director was almost trying to fit too many good ideas in one movie. I liked the main storyline of the people lost in the woods. The premise of the lady hunter going into the woods to hunt down the Goatsucker is good, but there isn’t enough time to develop both ideas in the same movie. The finale is especially guilty of this as a whole bunch of new concepts are established in the last few minutes that could have been made into an interesting plot of their own, but feel tacked on as a way to wrap up the film’s lingering plot points.

 

At least effort has been made to wrap up the plot and finalize everything, which is a thing that many movies of higher budgets don’t bother doing.

 

Speaking of budgets, it should be pointed out that this movie has an estimated budget of $1,000. While that number isn’t totally confirmed, it does indicate a production that has many limitations as to what can be done in terms of filming locations, time spent filming, actors who can be afforded, etc. Given those limitations, it is fair to say that the finished product has a surprising amount of detail and polish. Sure, it is still a flawed movie, but it makes me interested to see other movies from this director, since this is an early work of his. I would recommend this movie for people who enjoy low budget cinema and also for people who don’t (but maybe a little milder).