Welcome to Willits Review
By: Nik S
Director: Tim Ryan
Producer(s): Jordan Yale Levine, Scott Levenson, Jon Keeyes, Brandon Bakers, Tzeitel Abrego
Starring: Bill Sage, Chris Zylka, Anastasia Baranova, Sabina Gadecki, Dolph Lundgren
Production Company: Yale Productions, SSS Entertainment, BondIt
Distributor: IFC Midnight, Event Film Distribution
Runtime: 84 minutes
Brock (Sage) is a pot farmer in the middle of the woods who claims that he was once abducted by aliens. He has hallucinations of aliens experimenting on his brain and forcing him to watch propaganda. All his paranoia is encouraged by his wife (Gadecki) who seems to be just as delusional as he is. The only sane one in the bunch is Brock's niece (Baranova) who is visiting until she gets back on her feet. A group of twenty-somethings (Zylka, Culkin, et al.) drive into town looking for some hot springs and set up camp near Brock's farm. After a bad drug trip, Brock starts to see the campers who trespass on his farm as aliens and quickly determines that everyone and everything (like his favorite TV show staring Dolph Lundgren) is siding with the invaders. Brock goes on a murderous rampage to rid his farm of these creatures.
The movie tries to do a reverse slash horror aesthetic with some stoner comedy elements thrown in, but doesn't work as well as movies like Tucker and Dale vs Evil or Antibirth does. The story bounces around from two or three different plots and focusing on the bland or bizarre rather than the exciting or scares. The horror sits on the back burner the entire time and lets the stoner philosophy play front-and-center. All the jokes seem awkward and cringe worthy as the main comic reliefs just come off creepy rather than humorous. The acting ranges from alright to downright terrible; you think having Lundgren and a Culkin would mean there would be a level of quality, but it all feels phoned in. The actors weren't given much direction, as there is a lot of awkward pauses between dialogue, and some shots often seem like they were done once and considered good.
There's nothing that drives the story forward. Every scene clumsily goes into the next and it keeps falling over itself. The cinematography could have had a field day with a dark dense forest and trippy visuals, but it plays way too safe with stilted shots and straight on camera angles. The practical effects are done well, with little-to-no CGI. All the aliens, though probably just one suit, is designed well to look campy with that low-budget charm to it. The gore is all practical, but is rather hit or miss if it's used well in the scene or not.
In my honest opinion, if they would have focused on just one perspective or story this movie would have actually worked a little better. If they would have stayed with Brock and showed a slow building paranoia or had the audience come to that realization that he wasn't all there for themselves the film could have more pros than cons. Lundgren felt like he was in this movie solely as a promotional figure, and it's easy to tell he was not giving any effort in his acting. The jokes are often miss, similar to the scares, and it just lets the whole movie down.
Director: Tim Ryan
Producer(s): Jordan Yale Levine, Scott Levenson, Jon Keeyes, Brandon Bakers, Tzeitel Abrego
Starring: Bill Sage, Chris Zylka, Anastasia Baranova, Sabina Gadecki, Dolph Lundgren
Production Company: Yale Productions, SSS Entertainment, BondIt
Distributor: IFC Midnight, Event Film Distribution
Runtime: 84 minutes
Welcome to Willits, or Alien Hunter as it's known in the United Kingdom, is a comedy horror with sci-fi elements that is an adaptation of a fourteen minute short film director Tim Ryan made with his brother back in 2013. The film was originally shown at the New York City Horror Film Festival back in November of 2016, but didn't see an international release until about a year later. The Ryan Brothers, Tim and Trevor, came up with the idea as Trevor served four years in Federal Prison for non-medical marijuana.
Brock (Sage) is a pot farmer in the middle of the woods who claims that he was once abducted by aliens. He has hallucinations of aliens experimenting on his brain and forcing him to watch propaganda. All his paranoia is encouraged by his wife (Gadecki) who seems to be just as delusional as he is. The only sane one in the bunch is Brock's niece (Baranova) who is visiting until she gets back on her feet. A group of twenty-somethings (Zylka, Culkin, et al.) drive into town looking for some hot springs and set up camp near Brock's farm. After a bad drug trip, Brock starts to see the campers who trespass on his farm as aliens and quickly determines that everyone and everything (like his favorite TV show staring Dolph Lundgren) is siding with the invaders. Brock goes on a murderous rampage to rid his farm of these creatures.
The movie tries to do a reverse slash horror aesthetic with some stoner comedy elements thrown in, but doesn't work as well as movies like Tucker and Dale vs Evil or Antibirth does. The story bounces around from two or three different plots and focusing on the bland or bizarre rather than the exciting or scares. The horror sits on the back burner the entire time and lets the stoner philosophy play front-and-center. All the jokes seem awkward and cringe worthy as the main comic reliefs just come off creepy rather than humorous. The acting ranges from alright to downright terrible; you think having Lundgren and a Culkin would mean there would be a level of quality, but it all feels phoned in. The actors weren't given much direction, as there is a lot of awkward pauses between dialogue, and some shots often seem like they were done once and considered good.
There's nothing that drives the story forward. Every scene clumsily goes into the next and it keeps falling over itself. The cinematography could have had a field day with a dark dense forest and trippy visuals, but it plays way too safe with stilted shots and straight on camera angles. The practical effects are done well, with little-to-no CGI. All the aliens, though probably just one suit, is designed well to look campy with that low-budget charm to it. The gore is all practical, but is rather hit or miss if it's used well in the scene or not.
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