Bigfoot horror film Cherokee Creek deemed “Too Offensive” by Amazon and removed from streaming service-Fitz of Horror
Bryan Fitzgerald (Fitz of Horror) December 27, 2018
Synopsis-
What starts out as a million dollar trophy hunt at Cherokee Creek for the legendary Bigfoot, quickly turns violent when they realize that the mythical creature is more prepared and dangerous than they ever anticipated. Some weeks later, a group of friends decide to throw a surprise bachelor party for their friend in these very woods. After some wild partying and a few unexpected twists, our group finds out the truth about Cherokee Creek and the very territorial beast that roams these woods. Equal parts vulgar, gore and comedy Cherokee Creek is a can’t miss tale of debauchery and sasquatchian horror!
After being announced that critically acclaimed Bigfoot horror/comedy Cherokee Creek was finally coming to Video on Demand formats like iTunes, Google Play, Vudu and Amazon the horror world was buzzing about finally being able to see this film. With a successful pre-order campaign on iTunes, reaching the #3 spot for December 25th releases (only behind Halloween and Goosebumps 2), Cherokee Creek was looking at a wide VOD release on Christmas day. With iTunes, Vudu and Google Play keeping their word and making this hilariously raunchy and gory film available to horror lovers everywhere, streaming giant Amazon was the only platform that the film hadn’t been released on yet.
As it turns out when director and star of the film Todd Jenkins, found out that Amazon had deemed Cherokee Creek “Too offensive” for streaming on their site. With both male and female nudity in the film, not to mention copious amounts of gore, there are at least a handful of films (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Hard, Hall Pass, Blockers and Baywatch to name a few) that feature frontal male nudity and countless films that feature female nudity that stream for free on their site. For god sakes, The Greasy Strangler is available for streaming on Prime and the Amazon censors don’t consider it too offensive and that film definitely pushes the limits of sex and nudity (I love that film by the way).
The Amazon censorship board seems to be only swayed by money and if production companies, publicists, producers or directors have enough of it in their budget then their film will be considered OK for consumers to stream on their site. Cherokee Creek is an independent film and apparently doesn’t have enough money to buy their way into the good graces of the Amazon streaming site but Amazon needs to take a giant step back and look at the hard work and dedication of the people involved with this film and let the people decide for themselves what they find “offensive”. I have followed the progress of this film for a while now and everyone involved seems to be enthusiastic genre loving people who obviously just want to see their film be given a chance to do well with a wider audience.
Here is an excerpt from my original Cherokee Creek film review (Full review HERE)-
After kind of seeing the Bigfoot in the first few minutes of the movie, director Todd Jenkins takes the “JAWS approach” and we don’t see the big man again for just a little over an hour into the film. This is OK though because the dialogue and story carry this film quite nicely and when the action does pick up it picks up with a fury.
We go from horror/comedy with more comedy overtones right into a horror/comedy with very gory and more horror overtones. The music is very inspired and carries the film extremely well. I got a very distinct and intense Predator vibe mixed with the playful wonder of Harry and the Hendersons score which gives the movie an extra level of serious presence.
As I mentioned before, all of the FX in this film are practical and done very well. In the midst of people being hunted and killed by Sasquatch, other people are having sex and partying unaware of the danger in the woods until it’s too late. Heads and limbs are ripped off in fantastic and original ways and after seeing this I am going to coin the term “DICK-Capitation” or maybe “De-COCK-Itation”, either way the chain of events that led me to create these words because I had no other, were nothing short of some of the most funny and gory moments I’ve seen in a movie in a while.
If you’re a horror fan you will love this movie. There are several moments of raunchy comedy with equal amounts of gore and nudity but this very formula made several horror films of the 80s classics but now we are living in a society that thinks that this is now “too offensive” and furthermore wants to make these decisions for YOU the viewer. I think we are all “grown up” enough to make these kinds of tough decisions for ourselves and if we find something “offensive” or just don’t like it we have the choice to keep watching or turn it off.
The bottom line is that Cherokee Creek is an independent horror movie and indie horror films need all the help they can get to be seen. Amazon has that platform and the ability to help but they choose to censor or exclude the “little guys” because they don’t generate enough money or the “right crowd”. I would fully understand if the film was given a chance to succeed and didn’t why it would get pulled but to simply not give it a chance at all because of perceived “offensiveness” is simply called biased censorship.
To view Cherokee Creek on VOD sites with balls-
Cherokee Creek on Vudu– $4.99
Cherokee Creek on iTunes– $9.99
Follow Cherokee Creek on Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date on all of the release news.
https://www.facebook.com/cherokeecreekmovie/
https://www.instagram.com/cherokeecreekmovie/
Follow me on Facebook and Instagram at Fitz of Horror
Bryan Fitzgerald
I am a huge fan and supporter of independent horror and the dedicated people involved. I grew up watching all of the great slasher films of the 80s and also have a love for creature features and anthology horror. As horror fans the best way to help indie horror is to talk about it and to spread the word.