Hairy Man Creek

The story begins with Demi driving his van along a rural highway. With him are his family. Makayla his wife, Kiara his teenage step-daughter and Gabby, the nine-year-old he shares with Makayla.

They pass through a small town that appears to be almost abandoned, but for a few cars parked outside the general store. Despite the hot, blustering wind, the smoke from distant bushfires and the red sun, the town is bedecked with signs spruiking the ski season.

They drive into the hills through a landscape devastated by logging. Demi questions why his father built a cabin in such a depressing location.

The road takes them into the forest where Gabby believes she sees a gorilla. Kiara teases her and the two bicker.

They arrive at the “hut” to discover it is, in fact, a modern vacation home. Recently built, there are still construction materials and rubbish scattered across the site.

There is also a backhoe parked over the entrance to the fire refuge.

Demi and Makayla are surprised. Gabby is thrilled. But Kiara is unimpressed.

While the family eat dinner, someone observes their arrival from within the forest across the valley.

In the morning, Gabby shocks the family when she discovers a double-barrel shotgun in her late-granddad’s room. Demi is confused as his father had never been interested in guns.

Demi and Makayla set about cleaning up the neglected property. They discover the garage had been used by the local teens as party hangout. The interior is covered in graffiti, including a crude image of a hairy, humanoid creature.

Meanwhile Kiara takes it upon herself to find a phone signal. Gabby secretly follows and records Kiara as she dances on the hillside.

After almost losing her phone down a mineshaft, Kiara does manage to find a signal by climbing a tree.

Having revealed herself, Gabby asks Kiara why the saplings around them have all been snapped. Distracted by her search for a signal, Kiara suggests it was “the wind”.
Back at the house, Demi and Makayla are also examining broken trees. Demi does not believe wind could cause the damage they see.

Kiara reads her friends’ texts about their plans for the weekend and becomes upset.

Gabby announces she has found some “weird shit”. Kiara isn’t interested and heads back to the house. Gabby follows. After they leave, a turd breaks open to reveal a finger bone encircled by a wedding ring.

That night, to her horror, Kiara discovers a dead rat in her room. Demi disposes of it by throwing it into the bush. But Makayla, worried it may have been poisoned, sends him after it, to put in a bin. As Demi searches for it, he is spooked by the strange sounds coming from the wind-whipped forest. He decides to go back to the house.

During dinner, the house is “rained on” by sticks, and various other bits of supposedly windblown rubbish. The family is more curious than alarmed.

Kiara moves in to Gabby’s room and they immediately argue. Gabby has seen something outside her window, but afraid of being teased by her sister, she lies and says she saw a huge kangaroo.

The next day the family drive into town to buy supplies and mend their van’s flat tyre.

In town, Demi and Makayla get two very different takes on his late father, George, neither of which match the George that they knew. The owner of the backhoe, Burnsie, accuses George of cheating him out of what is owed to him. Angered, Demi pays what’s asked, but insists that the backhoe be removed that day or he will carve it up with his oxy acetylene cutter.

At the local newsagent and video store, Kiara inadvertently gets into an argument with Burnsie’s son, Burno. Makayla arrives just in time to defuse the situation.
On the way home, Makayla warns Kiara that Burno wanted to kill her and that she should be more aware of the people around her.

Back at the house, Gabby steals some food and then, without telling her parents, sneaks off into the hot, stormy weather. Near the top of Midas Hill, Gabby uses the food as bait, hoping to get proof of her “gorilla’s” existence.

Burnsie’s mechanic, Jonah, arrives to remove the backhoe from the property. Jonah, a First Nations Australian, notices the snapped trees. The sight frightens him.
Surprised that Gabby isn’t out “helping” Demi and Jonah with the backhoe, Makayla asks Kiara about her, worried that she’s wandered off. Annoyed, Kiara goes looking for her.

Gabby finds a sheltered rock cul-de-sac and rests, reviewing her work on her camera. She sees a large shadow change places in two consecutive phone images and realises she’s being watched by the “gorilla”. Frightened, she decides to leave.

Wanting to warn them about the Yowie, but afraid of being laughed at, Jonah suggests the fire shelter might be a cooler place to sleep than the house.
Kiara searches and finds Gabby hiding among some bracken. A misunderstanding has Kiara believing Gabby was bitten by a snake. She is relieved to learn it is “only” bull ant bites.

That night, after Gabby goes to bed, the house is attacked. Demi and Makayla assume its Burno and the others. Demi tries to scare them off by firing his dad’s shotgun into the air and accidentally takes out a floodlight.

The attacks stop, but they spend a tense night taking shifts to keep watch. They decide to leave in the morning.

In the morning, Kiara is elated to learn that they are leaving. However their departure is delayed when they’re visited by the local police.

Assuming that Peel, the policeman, is there about the attack, they are surprised to learn that two local teens were involved in a car crash and the driver, Burno, is missing and is assumed to have fled the scene. Demi believes they were the attackers, but the Cop tells them the accident happened later. Makayla suspects they were coming back for a second attack.

They decide to stay and provide a base for the Search and Rescue teams looking for Burno.

Late in the day, just after the Search and Rescue teams depart for the night, Demi’s brother, Tony, and his wife, Fay, arrive, unannounced. While pretending to be there for his brother, Tony is actually there to assess the property for sale. The two brothers are not close.

That night an argument flares up when Makayla suspects Tony has been trying to spy on Kiara while she was having a shower. It is is misunderstanding that is cut short when the Yowie rips Tony from the veranda and takes him away.

Things quickly go from bad to worse when Fay attempts to flee the scene and accidentally jams her car into the trench leading to the fire refuge. Demi goes to help her, but finds the car empty and its interior sprayed with blood.

Frightened he runs back to the house, only to be grabbed by the Yowie before the eyes of his horrified family!

The family are devastated. But Kiara manages to rouse them, reassuring Makayla that Demi may not be dead, and telling her they can call for help from the top of Midas Hill. They grab gardening tools as weapons, including Demi’s electric chainsaw, and get into the van.

The van almost gets them to the top of the hill, but becomes bogged a short distance from their destination. Kiara elects to go send the message. Makayla doesn’t want her to go, but Kiara won’t be stopped.

Alone in the van with her mum, Gabby appears catatonic, massaging her temples, eyes closed and swaying.

Kiara manages to send the message, but is immediately attacked by the Yowie. She fights back with the electric chainsaw. The chain gets caught in the Yowie’s flesh and shaggy hair, trapping it in the tree. Kiara escapes.

Gabby convinces Makayla that she knows where Demi is. They meet Kiara and set off for the stone cul-de-sac, as the Yowie roars in pain.

The cave entrance is hidden, much like the villain’s lair in the old B&W movie. Kiara enters, and, after a gory ordeal, manages to find and rescue a battered Demi.

On their way back to the van, they are nervous because they can’t hear the Yowie. Their fears are confirmed when Gabby sees the Yowie stalking them.

Makayla stays back to confront the Yowie with the shotgun, as the other three struggle to make it to the van. But the Yowie, aware of what a shotgun is capable of, circles around to cut them off.

Makayla sprints to block the Yowie. It attacks and she shoots, managing to wound it. But the enraged Yowie soon gains the upper hand – until Kiara comes to her rescue and kills it with an axe.

Makayla and Gabby nurse Demi in the van, while Kiara takes photos of the dead Yowie, documenting the historic find.

In the distance, the rescue helicopter approaches.