MovieChat Forums > The Wild Man of the Navidad (2008) Discussion > What was the creature supposed to be?

What was the creature supposed to be?

posted 15 years ago by grazatt
9 replies | jump to latest

I saw the movie and I still can't figure it out. Have the directors said?

The best I can make of it is that it was some sort of weird hybrid of human and God knows what. I've read most of the director interviews and what not and the most they've ever touched on it is that Dale never really knew WHAT it was, and they were just going on his accounts. I was hoping the article in Fangoria would clear that up but all they said was that the real life Dale refuses to watch it.

[–] grazatt 15 years ago

Is that what the thing was really supposed to have looked like?

[–] Poisoned_Dragon1964 15 years ago

I should imagine that what the film intends is very much based on The Legend of Boggy Creek's "Fouke Monster," supposedly some form of cryptohominid.

Otherwise, the "Wild Man of the Navidad" would historically appear to have been an escaped slave.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txrefugi/WildManoftheNavidad.htm

§« The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. »§

[–] wildmanofthenavidad 15 years ago

I don't think anyone ever knew exactly WHAT it/he/she was, but I would tend to agree that most believe it to have been a cryptohominid of some sort.

The Wikipedia page details it best:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Man_of_the_Navidad

[–] Poisoned_Dragon1964 15 years ago

With markup:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Man_of_the_Navidad

§« The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. »§

[–] Poisoned_Dragon1964 15 years ago

I wonder if the tusks were its own, or if they were something it was wearing, just as certain tribes wear objects like bones or discs, pierced through lips or cheeks?

That's probably to definitive a question to be addressed - I suppose some questions must be left unanswered.

§« The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. »§

[–] wildmanofthenavidad 15 years ago

I don't think Dale knew whether they were real or not, but I do remember a mention of one being pretty loose. But whether that was because they were actually "worn" or just knocked loose somehow, hard to say. Like you said, some questions must be left unanswered.

[–] Poisoned_Dragon1964 15 years ago

check your PMs

§« The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. »§

[–] Mike1951 13 years ago

The text of the Texas Historical Commission's marker in Sublime reads:

"A mysterious runaway Negro slave who alternately terrified and aroused pity of settlers in this region for about 15 years. The mysterious exile, at first with a companion, appeared along the Navidad bottoms about 1836. Hiding in trees during day, he stole into kitchens at night for food, but always left half. He also took tools, returning them later, brightly polished. Slaves called him "The thing that comes", fearing a ghost. Captured in 1851, the wild man proved to be an African chief's son. Resold into slavery, he died peacefully as "Old Jimbo" in 1884."