The Wampus Cat

After a series of strange deaths, the locals of a small town in the middle of the woods are inclined to believe a woman's stories about it being the work of a legendary creature known as a Wampus Cat prowling the area and sets out with several other locals to catch it and stop it.

Overall, this was a rather fun and enjoyable indie creature feature. One of the strong aspects here is a rather fun setup that provides a workable starting point in this particular genre to go into a solid cryptid creature feature. The urban legend in the area involving the cat and its presence in the area dating back hundreds of years to stories involving the local Indian tribe that have long been ignored except for underground books detailing those stories offers a reasonable enough explanation for its existence while also going for the inability to notice it until the present time. As that goes alongside the strong series of attacks and local uproar over the animal deaths and missing livestock that's sprung up recently as a result of the creature being awakened by unassuming hunters, the simple storyline makes for a solid and unassuming means of getting the necessary factors brought about and put into motion. Due to this, when the film goes for the creature attacks there are solid indie scenarios at play here. With the humanoid creature making a fun chance at getting the creature to interact in more involved indie-styled close-quarter encounters with the creature popping up out of the woods to catch a victim off-guard, it brings about some fun sequences. With the initial attack on the hunters or the creature wiping out a hunting party looking for it, there are some intriguing aspects here while also allowing for small bits of gore to crop up as well. Later scenes involving the creature stalking victims in the city such as spying on the gang out wandering the streets or the lone victim in the library come off rather nicely as these employ the creatures' point-of-view for the sequence as well as glimpses of its clawed hands to offer up some solid suspense leading to the final chase out on the farm where most of the action had taken place. It's all fun enough to be worthwhile and lifts this one up overall while this one does have some minor drawbacks. The biggest detriment is the need for switching around the main protagonist into a somewhat flimsy excuse to set their villain arc in motion. The idea of doing this is somewhat cliched and not that interesting so the concept is hard to accept even with a solid bit of reasoning that justifies everything so it feels like a missed opportunity especially with that issue getting addressed one moment before a cheat final twist that then renders everything moot anyway. The other issue isn't much of a true flaw but it does wear its low-budget limitations quite obviously with the creature costume and locations giving this away much like the general presentation that looks shot on location so it's not hard to notice it. These are really what hold it down.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.

Every once in a while, with B movies, you stumble across a surprising little gem. This wasn't one of them. It's bad, but even with the bad acting and dialogue I was trying to cut it some slack.

But after one of the first few glimpses of the creature, I gave up, It looks like a team mascot, bobblehead and all.

I think that the actors were giving it their best, but they had no script support at all. The sob story concerning the niece's education didn't help. The other thing that irritates me no end is that too much of it was done at night with insufficient lighting. I guess that helps them hide a lack of decent sets and bad make-up. Even a little CGI would have gone a long way. Give this one a hard pass.