Native

It’s the summer of 1982 - an economic recession and the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression has sent Tom Reilly and his family (his wife, Amber and their three boys) into the remotest corner of Northern California where a new job and (they hope) a new life awaits. Tom temporarily moves them into a rundown trailer in the wilderness while they wait for their house to be built, using his distant Native heritage to gain access to long dormant tribal land. It is here that Tom will attempt to do what he has been unable to do up until now - provide for his family. Almost immediately, strange things happen - some of their animals go missing, they hear odd sounds, something damages their property. Chalking this up to being harassed by hostile Natives who view him as an outsider, Tom buys a bunch of no trespassing signs and ventures into the woods to post them all around the property. This is when he comes face to face with something he doesn’t believe exists - a creature the locals call Sasquatch. Tom is attacked and narrowly escapes, leaving him traumatized and terrified. With his family afraid and anxious to move away, Tom has to reveal his secret - the trailer in the wilderness was never a temporary fix. Being completely out of money and out of options, Tom took this job in the middle of nowhere and concocted a story about getting a new house to convince his wife and kids to get on board. They can’t move away because they’re broke and have no place to go. Tom does some research and tracks down an expert - an old, blustery British professor named Dr. Margaret Keene who’s been studying these creatures for years. Her passion for this subject has all but destroyed her academic career, which frees her up to come to the Reillys’ property in order to study it up close and help them figure out how to survive. Her approach is to - rather than treating it as an intruder or predator - attempt to find a way to communicate with it. She believes that it’s possible to make some sort of contact with the creature, and intends to try. It is at this time that Tom Reilly is taken into custody by these mysterious guys who say they’re with the Fish and Wildlife Department. They interrogate him about what’s been happening on his property, then - when they’re off the record - they admit they know about the creature, they need to know more about it, and that if Tom is willing to kill it and turn it over to them, they’ll set his family up financially for life. Tom - out of options - agrees, and is instructed to rendez-vous with two Native American law enforcement officers from the nearby Indian Reservation who have been hand-picked for this unusual mission given their familiarity with the Sasquatch legend and the land. The officers - cousins from the Swiftwater family - are skeptical and treat the whole thing as a lark that will at least put some extra money in their pockets. It’s the night before the hunting expedition is to officially begin. As everyone sleeps, the creature snatches the Reillys’ youngest child through his bedroom window. Tom, his oldest son, Dr. Keene, and the two Indian officers form a hunting party and pursue the creature deep into the forest. After embracing traditional hunting tactics and weaponry from the Swiftwaters, Tom leads the group in recovering his child and blowing the creature to bits. The next morning, the mysterious guys and a bunch of Army grunts quietly take the creature away and sweep the incident under the rug. A couple days later, Tom returns to the property to find that it has all been sealed off and seized by the government. Tom takes his wife and kids away from here, realizing that - having killed the beast that terrorized them and received enough money from the government to start over - he has, for the first time, provided for his family.