Just announced a few hours ago is the official line up for the South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW). One of the films premiering as part of the “Midnighters” category is Andrew Bowser’s microbudget Jimmy Tupper VS. The Goatman of Bowie, a film that “was made out of my love for films like ‘Evil Dead,’ ‘Pumpkinhead,’ ‘Gremlins’, and a million other horror films!” Bowser explained to BD. In the “first true found footage horror pieces, Jimmy Tupper is no one, he’s nothing, until one night he sees something in the woods that can’t be real. It becomes his mission to prove its existence and find his purpose. Bloody Disgusting has scored an exclusive first look at the trailer that can be viewed beyond the break.
Jimmy Tupper spends his days working at a Starbucks in Suburban Maryland and spends his nights drinking and playing Rock Band. His friends see him as the resident stoner and waste of space. One night they decide to pull a prank on poor Jimmy, and while he is passed out drunk they leave him in the middle of the woods.

The next day Jimmy is nowhere to be found. When he finally emerges from the woods he is beaten and bloodied and making outlandish claims. He claims to have seen a monster, the famed “Goatman” of Bowie. His friends believe this to be the drunken ramblings of an over excited nitwit, but Jimmy knows better. He heads to the woods determined to capture footage of the elusive creature.

Was Jimmy only dreaming? Did he really see a monster? Only time, and Jimmy’s video camera, will tell.

“We made this film for a budget of nothing. In my eyes- it is one of the only true “found footage” horror pieces to be created,” Bowser tells Bloody Disgusting. “Meaning that, as a filmmaker I set strict rules for myself and my actors about what would and wouldn’t naturally be “caught on film“. We were constantly asking ourselves- “would they really be recording this?”

If it didn’t seem like the camera would’ve organically caught certain events on tape, then we didn’t include those events in the film. Unlike most “found footage” films that include a multitude of scenes involving trite plot exposition and dramatic artifice (like that of a straight forward Hollywood film…but simply shot “handheld“) “Jimmy Tupper…” has missing pieces and even gaping holes that will hopefully add to the film’s suspense. Not to mention…a killer ending.”

Click here for the first batch of stills.