Creep (2014)

 

With the TV series The Creep Files starting to air on Shudder, what better time for Second Sight to release one of their whistles and bells packages (in both standard and limited editions) devoted to the original found footage thriller? And if those 'f' words have you running for the hills, let me tell you now that CREEP very much still deserves a chance, so read on.

A found footage (I know) mumblecore (stick with me) improvisational (it's really very good, though) piece featuring only two actors, the plot involves film-maker Aaron (co-writer and director Patrick Brice) answering an ad placed by Jacob (co-writer Mark Duplass) who lives in a remote mountain town. The job? Jacob is dying and wants his final thoughts recorded on video for his unborn son. 

But is any of that true? As the day goes on things get weirder, as does Jacob's behaviour. He takes to wearing a terrifying wolf mask he refers to a 'Peachfuzz' (the film's original title) and Aaron starts to realise he may be in the presence of a dangerous lunatic. When CREEP premiered at Frightfest it boasted an ending that was one of the most horrible and disturbing of the festival that year, and if you've not seen it I'm not going to spoil it for you.

Second Sight's new Blu-ray wipes the floor with previous bare bones releases. We get a new commentary from Brice, Duplass and editor Christopher Donlan to compliment the archival one with Brice and Duplass only. There are also new interviews with Duplass (19 minutes), Brice (37 minutes) and Donlan (16 minutes), a half hour Q&A with the cast and crew, a deleted scene, an alternative scene (two minutes), and two alternative endings (seven minutes). 

Finally, the limited edition comes with a 70 page book, six art cards, and the usual rigid slipcase to keep it all in. Excellent. Now who's for Tubby Time?

Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass' CREEP is out in both standard and limited editions from Second Sight on Monday, 

9th December 2024, just in time to make it a nice 

Christmas present for anyone who might also 

be getting a video camera.

Advent (2024)

 

After its premiere at Halloween Frightfest, writer-director Airell Anthony Hayes' pseudo documentary-cum found footage picture gets a digital release from Miracle Media.

Hayley (Rasina Pavlova) has a YouTube channel (which is where the found footage angle comes in) and wrote her university thesis on urban legends. She buys a 'Krampus calendar' online, which turns out to be a Christmas-tree shaped wooden box with 24 doors. Each time you open one it presents you with a challenge. Get to the end and Krampus steals your soul and ensures your body ends up in a messy suicide.

And that's the main problem with ADVENT. It's never adequately explained why Hayley would want to go through the various trials (which range from walking around your Christmas tree three times to staying up all night to sitting naked in front of an open fire - audiences of 'sophisticated' cinema should not get worked up about this, however) just to end up dead and consigned to hell.

It's a very low budget homemade-feeling endeavour with the standout performance being Nicolas Vince who is required to spout a lot of background dialogue and is presented to us as an expert filmed from the same two camera angles over and over, filling us in on information at regular intervals throughout the film. ADVENT is not scary, it's not especially involving and ultimately it's not worth its admittedly brief (77 minutes) running time. Here's the trailer:

Advent will be released on UK Digital (iTunes, Amazon, Google Play) by Miracle Media on 25th November 2024 

Nyctophobia (2024)

"Found Footage Rides Again"

The genre nobody wanted to see a resurgence of gets a new entry with Kim Noonan's NYCTOPHOBIA, getting a digital release from Miracle Media.

Twin sisters Rose and Azalea (Chiara and Bianca D'Ambrosio) are about to set off to their post-graduation party with friend Brooks (BJ Tanner). However, before they leave the house, strange things start to happen. Rose is convinced the moon, which was previously full, has disappeared. Then there's a power cut. The only source of light is Brooks' phone which he has been using to record their pre-party preparations.

No other light source - including the torch Rose has bough as a present for nyctophobic Azalea - will work, and as the night goes on it becomes apparent that there are creatures in the dark who are after the eyes of human victims.

NYCTOPHOBIA has a brief running time of less than 80 minutes but still needs padding by topping and tailing the main action with two youtubers in conversation about what might have happened. There are a few nice touches - the twins' father has had a stroke and starts talking gibberish in a nicely composed scene where images of the kids' graduation are projected on a screen while a strange message has been written on a blackboard in the corner.

Otherwise this is strictly amateur stuff - clunky dialogue that frequently feels improvised, and a lot of shaking the camera (or rather the mobile phone) around to create tension. There are worse found footage films out there but there an awful lot that are better than this, too.

NYCTOPHOBIA is out on UK Digital from Miracle Media on Monday 22nd April 2024

The Outwaters (2023)

"Hit or Miss Found Footage Horror"

Writer-director-cinematographer-editor-star Robbie Banfitch's decidedly auteurist low budget found footage horror is getting a UK cinema release from Blue Finch. It's a film that's divided opinion, with many reviews filled with breathless praise. Here is one that isn't.

Four thirty-something individuals with little appeal or character head into the Los Angeles desert to film a music video. Eventually. After an awful lot of the running time being taken up by very little happening. Indeed, if you plan to watch this at the cinema don't worry if you are half an hour late as you won't have missed anything. There's also the question of who is going to film the video as nobody seems able to hold a camera even slightly steady for more than a few seconds.

Once they are out in the desert, they wander about a bit and meet some mules. Then something horrible happens to them. I won't say what, and usually this would be to avoid spoilers. In this case it's because I have no idea what was going on. This continues for the next hour or so of footage which has been described by some as 'an assault on the senses' but which I would prefer to describe as interminable.

There's enough going on in THE OUTWATERS to make a good, unnerving short subject, but with the material here steamrollered out to 110 minutes it becomes genuinely unendurable, and not in the 'extreme cinema' way its maker intends. On the basis of the trailer I really wanted to like it but when the most interesting thing on the screen for long periods is the distributor's security watermark it's never a good sign. You may love it. You may not. But now you have been warned. Here's the trailer:

Robbie Banfitch's THE OUTWATERS is out in UK cinemas on Friday 7th April 2023 and on Digital on Monday 8th May 2023 

Followed (2018)

The found footage genre appears to be alive and (reasonably) well in Antoine Le's FOLLOWED, which is getting a digital (how apt) release from Altitude.

Annoying social media 'influencer' Mike (Matthew Solomon) has a youtube channel where he visits crime scene locations and enthuses with almost pathological vigour about the horrors that took place there. When he bags a lucrative sponsorship deal with 'Haute Gothic' on the condition his subscriber base substantially increases, he decides to visit the Lennox Hotel, a building that has seen far more than its fair share of murders, suicides, and possibly even hauntings. But nothing prepares him for the revelations he eventually discovers within.

As video technology has advanced so has the watchability of movies that employ that technology to convey their narratives. FOLLOWED still has a fair bit of shaky cam but at least the images we get in these movies now is nice and clear. As for its content, FOLLOWED is frequently derivative, spends a lot of time relating scary stories that don't pay off later, and only in its second half does it start to deliver the goods, and even then it all feels rather half-baked. If you want to be scared by doors opening by themselves or objects falling off shelves then you're still better off watching PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, but there's fun to be had here spotting other movie influences - one ongoing thread of the team's editor staying in her hotel room and going slowly insane has an almost PRINCE OF DARKNESS feel to it.

Ultimately, while FOLLOWED is nothing special, if you're in the mood for a found footage picture where a very annoying lead character actually has an arc that helps explain his actions with some scary bits along the way then you could do worse than this.

FOLLOWED is out on digital from Altitude Film Distribution on Monday 11th October 2021

Lake Mungo (2006)

Writer-director Joel Anderson's first and so far only feature gets an extras-loaded limited edition Blu-ray release from Second Sight.

Sixteen year old Alice Palmer (Talia Zucker) drowns while swimming in a nearby lake (not the lake of the title). Her body is eventually found by police, her father confirms that it is her, and the Palmer family begin the long road to recovery from their tragic loss. But pretty soon strange phenomena start to occur. Is that really Alice's image that'a appearing on photographs and on video footage filmed both near where she drowned and in the Palmers' house? Is her ghost trying to communicate with them? And what really happened during her school trip to the titular Lake Mungo, a dry dustbowl of a place that, like Wolf Creek, is another Australian location named after water but boasts not a drop of the stuff?

LAKE MUNGO is, as directors Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead are at pains to point out in one of the excellent accompanying interviews on Second Sight's Blu-ray, less "found footage" and more "fake documentary". Filmed in such a way that its subject matter is never sensationalised and with natural performances, the film never let's its mask slip that the whole thing is, in fact, fiction. 

The realistic documentary feel is just one of many things to comment LAKE MUNGO. There's a real M R Jamesian 'corner of the retina' sense of things lurking in the corner of the frame, especially once the film itself starts to point them out. By halfway through you'll be searching every shot but Anderson's direction is clever enough that you only ever see what he wants you to.

He also only explains so much, leaving the viewer to fill in the blanks and reach their own conclusion as to what other horrors may have happened and the actual truth behind Alice Palmer's death. Add in the weird Australian location of the title that may possess supernatural qualities providing a PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK vibe, plus a young girl called Palmer who lives a secret life and meets a horrible death but isn't a TV series created by David Lynch and Mark Frost and there's still plenty in the 87 minute running time of this one to unpack and reward future viewings.

Second Sight's Blu-ray is packed with extras. As well as the  informative Benson & Moorhead interview there are two commentary tracks - a new one by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Emma Westwood as well as a ported over one from David Rapsey (producer) and cinematographer John Brawley. There are also interviews with Brawley, Rapsey and actors Carole Patullo and James Lawson. HOST director Rob Savage is also on hand to give his opinion of the film, and there are video essays by writer Josh Nelson and film-maker Joseph Wallace. 

Finally, there's a booklet with new essays and an interview with actor James Lawson, three collector's art cards and the whole package is housed in one of Second Sight's beautifully decorated slipcases. An excellent presentation of a film that deserves to be much better known than it is. 

Joel Anderson's  LAKE MUNGO is out on Limited Edition Blu-ray from Second Sight on Monday 7th June 2021

I Blame Society (2020)

One of German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's bleakest works is the 1978 IN A YEAR OF 13 MOONS in which a man undergoes a sex-change operation simply because someone he admires tells him he'd be okay if he was a woman. Whether or not Fassbinder's film was an influence on director and star Gillian Wallace Horvat's I BLAME SOCIETY, out in a bit from Blue Finch releasing, there's certainly the suggestion that its lead character, also called Gillian and also a film director, has embarked on her latest project because someone has told her she would make a good murderer.

I BLAME SOCIETY isn't exactly found footage but it is a compilation of material Gillian shoots on a GoPro and iPhone to tell her story, that of identifying a suitable victim (her friend Chase's 'emotionally abusive' girlfriend whom she nicknames Stalin) and easing herself into murdering the girl, first by practising breaking and entering an empty house, then with someone inside it, and leading up to an actual killing as a 'rehearsal'.

But one is not enough and so Gillian the film-maker becomes Gillian the serial killer, keeping a video record of her exploits and taking I BLAME SOCIETY into the territory of Belvaux, Bonzel and Poelvoorde's 1992 C'EST ARRIVE PRES DU CHEZ VOUS (MAN BITES DOG) and Michael Haneke's 2007 FUNNY GAMES. 

Mercifully, while I BLAME SOCIETY doesn't skimp on the horrible murders, it is laced with a considerable degree of humour and told with enough skill that it sometimes feels like a cross between Franck Khalfoun's 2012 MANIAC remake and Mary Harron's AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000). As well as having a whale of a time with its murderous lead character, the film also manages some sly satirical pokes at the current state of trends in film and television and the result is one of the best movies of its type to have come along in several years. 

I BLAME SOCIETY is thoroughly entertaining and does an excellent job of giving us a believable and (almost) sympathetic psychopathic killer while at the same time causing the viewer to wince at what she actually gets up to. It's all great stuff and one hopes Gillian Wallace Horvat will get the opportunity to make more features. If, that is, anyone has the guts to be alone in a room with her for a production meeting after watching this. 

Gillian Wallace Horvat's I BLAME SOCIETY is out from Blue Finch releasing on Digital Download on 

Monday 19th April 2021

Here's the trailer:

Keep Watching (2017)

"Found Footage Home Invasion Horror"

Yes they're still making them. If nothing else KEEP WATCHING, which is out on DVD this month from Sony, does demonstrate nicely a few exploitation tropes that have been in use now for more than seventy years, namely:

1 Combining previously proven successful concepts. 

In 1943 it was FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN. We're still waiting for ANNABELLE MEETS CHUCKY. In the meantime here's Found Footage Meets Home Invasion. 

2 Killing the most expensive cast members first.

I suppose this could be considered a spoiler, so I'll leave you to discover who cost the most (probably) out of Leigh Whannell and Ioan Gruffudd.

3 Not Strictly Adhering to Your Concept For the Sake of a Lower Certificate.

So a gang has broken into a family's house while they were on holiday and installed minute cameras everywhere, so the subsequent horrors can be broadcast as entertainment on the internet. Somehow they manage to position the cameras in the bathroom so judiciously that we cannot see when someone is on the toilet, or in the shower, because taps and curtains and other AUSTIN POWERS-like contrivances serve to obscure our view. Our view of this snuff film featuring real deaths that is apparently going out on the internet. The Internet. That haven of coyness and sensitivity that people will pay for more of. 

4 Ripping off a better film at the end that makes you think 'why didn't I watch that instead of this'?

I won't say which one because, you know, spoilers, but let's just say I saw it coming.

If, however, you find the above appealing then KEEP WATCHING is definitely for you. I will admit I liked the use of drones as part of the internet feed, but it also added to the general daftness of the concept. Sony's discs contains no extras of note.

KEEP WATCHING is out on DVD now from Sony. The UK cover is up there. The US cover seems to think balloons are a bigger seller than a terrified girl. And who am I to argue? Perhaps a naked American man will steal them. 

Blair Witch (2016)

“Lives Up to the Comparison to Friday the 13th Part V on the Box”

Of course it had to happen. After the somewhat scrappy and uninspired remakes of HALLOWEEN (2007), FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009) and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010) it was only fair that young moviegoers of the twenty-first century also got to have their own remake of the most successful horror film of 1999. Directed by horror’s own ‘King of Swingers’ (of the camera that is), Adam Wingard’s BLAIR WITCH is getting a digital, DVD and Blu-ray release from Lionsgate.

It’s kind of a sequel as well as a remake, in the way that films that are anxious to cover all the bases in a desperate attempt to appeal to as many people as possible are. James Allen McCune plays James, whose sister Heather (nudge nudge) disappeared in the woods around Burkittsville when he was four years old. Convinced by some dodgy video footage that she’s still there, he sets off with some friends on his own ill-advised and ill-equipped journey into the Heart of Found Footage territory.  

BLAIR WITCH received decidedly mixed reviews on its cinema release last year and it's not difficult to see why. If you're a fan of the found footage subgenre this hits all the bases (not much happening for the first thirty minutes, followed by lots of frantic running around and wobblycam, brief glimpses of things towards the end). If you're not then you probably aren't going to watch this anyway, as, sadly there's nothing in BLAIR WITCH to distinguish it from the plethora of BLAIR WITCH wannabes from five years ago you can probably still find down the pound shop.

And that’s a great shame, because there are a couple of supremely scary and unnerving ideas here in desperate need of a proper film to be made about them. The group seem to get trapped in a time vortex, where a night can last five days. The drone they bring with them, in a nice touch, reveals from the air that the forest has changed and all paths leading out have vanished. 

None of this is used to any effect, however. Instead we have Mr Wingard using his ‘swing the camera around as much as possible' style that has marred pretty much everything he’s made except THE GUEST (I’m beginning to think that’s his LORDS OF SALEM as it’s the only thing by him I really like). The sound design is horrible, veering between people whispering and then SHOUTING VERY LOUDLY or people mumbling and then ROCK MUSIC PLAYED AT AN ABOMINABLE VOLUME. It’s all profoundly irritating, uninspired, and very annoying. It also made me feel old - make of that what you will.

            Lionsgate’s DVD and Blu-ray release comes with a Wingard commentary, plus a number of making of featurettes and a special ‘low sound option for late night viewing’. 

Adam Wingard's BLAIR WITCH is out from Lionsgate on digital platforms from 16th January 2017 and it gets a DVD and Blu-ray release a week later on the 23rd.