As you may or may not know, it's Monster Week on Animal Planet. Well, at this point it's the tale end of Monster Week, which is going to culminate with the premier of a film called The Cannibal in the Jungle....which is apparently about a guy who either survived a cannibal attack in a jungle, or murdered his friends and tried to blame it on cannibals. Firstly, I'm not sure what the heck that has to do with animals....so I'm not sure why that movie would be debuting on Animal Planet. Secondly....why does THIS get released yet Eli Roth's The Green Inferno languishes in distribution hell? WHY?
Anyway, as I was watching a marathon of Monsters & Mysteries in America today (what can I say, I'm a sucker for poorly recreated supernatural events!) and I saw a commercial for I Was Bitten. I was intrigued to say the least. I told the Mrs. about it and we tuned in at 7pm (Eastern Standard) and settled in for what we thought was going to be a two hour documentary about a dude that had a close call with some sort of cryptid.
The show focuses on a man named Daniel who claims that he was attacked by an unknown creature while he was out in the woods one day. His wife, Krsytal (as well as his mother and step-father) is worried about him because he's been acting rather strange. He's become completely obsessed with finding this mystery critter and making sure that he and his family are safe.
We follow along as Daniel becomes more and more obsessed as his health seems to decline slightly. His wife convinces him to go to the hospital to get checked out and have some tests run. The doctor states that she cannot identify the animal that bit him from the bite marks. The doctor also suggests that Daniel see a psychiatrist to help him work through the obvious PTSD that he's going through. He does go to see a hypnotist at one point, hoping to help him remember some of the details that are a bit fuzzy. The session does not go well, when Daniel becomes agitated.
I've gotta say that they had me going along hook, line and sinker. While I won't spoil the end of this "special", I will say that I was very surprised by the end, which immediately signaled that this entire documentary had indeed been fictional. Quite impressively, both the Mrs and I thought we were watching a bona-fide Animal Planet documentary right up until the last 10 seconds! Sure, there were moments here and there that had me questioning exactly what in the hell was going on, but goddamned if it didn't come out of nowhere and smack me upside the head!
Having said that, it's very well done and I'll admit that I became invested in Daniel & Krystal and their life and truly wanted to see Daniel get the help he needed while simultaneously hoping to catch a glimpse of the mystery beast. Turns out, it was all a great bit shame! Fool me once......
Cie la vie, as they say.