Found Footage Fave: Hell House, LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor

Posted on January 27, 2025 by marey mercy

Reason for filming: A true crime enthusiast has booked a stay at a supposedly haunted mansion and wants to document it for her followers

Director/Writer: Steven Cognetti

What’s the horror: Supernatural, and also bad 80s fashions

Does the dog die? No animal cruelty. One character shrieks like an insane monkey, though.

Gore factor: A few quick shots of murdered people and icky undead people, but not much else

Re-watch scale: Pretty heavy rotation; this one stays fun for me even after multiple viewings

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! Don’t scroll if you don’t want to know.

When I wrote my original review of Hell House, LLC, I stated that the two sequels to that film were not to my liking and that I wouldn’t be reviewing them. But lo and behold, the creators came out with another sequel last year, and it’s quite good. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and attempts to tie it to the original film weigh it down at times, but the franchise has found a new set piece that is pretty great, and they filled it with their standard slow-burn scares and some mostly likable characters.

I say mostly because unfortunately, the lead character, Margot, is pretty annoying. I think the actress is quite good, but unfortunately, she’s given the thankless found footage role of “person who refuses to leave, even as the events around her become more threatening and dangerous.” And it’s not just that – her over-the-top glee and constant asides to the camera feel more performative than genuine, and she has no respect for the boundaries of people around her. Realistically, it’s her girlfriend Rebecca who should get priority over what they do with their time since she’s the one who has an actual, paying job, but for some reason, she continues to indulge Margot in her investigations, even at the expense of her own employment. It appears Margot just runs around conducting investigations for a true crime blog and doesn’t do much else.

We get some early hints that there’s a reason Margot is so excited to go to this location, but the reveal of said reason is anticlimactic, and it seems more likely that Margot is using that event from her past to manipulate everyone into sticking it out. More on that later.

Rebecca and Margot engaging in some fine dining

But first, we need to hear from our new talking heads, Bradley Moynahan and Alicia Cavalini, as we are once again using the mockumentary approach. I mean, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and while these talking heads lack the awesomeness of the handlebar mustache guy from the original, they fulfill their duties fine. Alicia is a true crime writer while Bradley is the co-founder of Margot’s true crime website, Net Sleuths. We cut between these two interviews to explain the backstory of the Carmicheal Manor, as the house is known. It’s big, it’s very remote, and one October morning police came to the house to find the mother and daughter slaughtered horrifically in their beds, while the father and son have disappeared and been missing for 30 years. Alice tells us the early suspicion is on the father because there is only one set of footprints in the snow leaving the house. Maybe that’s because Jesus was carrying him at that point? No one suspects Patrick because he’d broken an arm in a car accident and wouldn’t have been able to kill as easily as Dad.

It’s at this point that the movie shows us a hilarious picture of Patrick, lying down on a twin bed with his arm in a sling and looking forlornly out the window, and every time I see it I want to ask: who the hell took this picture? Did they try several times to get him to say cheese and he refused, so they took this shot as revenge or something? Because it is not a photo anyone would take much less print out, but whatever. The point is Patrick had a broken arm and isn’t considered a suspect in the murders as a result. I wish I could screencap this for you, but Shudder won’t let me and I couldn’t find one through a Google search, but AI thinks it looked something like this, which it most certainly did not:

We cut to some previews of the scary shit that’s about to happen, hear a lot of screams and a garbled 911 call, fade to black, and here we go. Cut to Rebecca driving and complaining about being hungry. They stop and eat somewhere while asking the cashier what he knows about Carmicheal Manor. He appears surprised that they are going to be staying there for five days. Margo is super-proud of this; clearly, she feels like she’s pulled off a major coup by wrangling this arrangement out of the property manager. They drive around lost for a while to establish just how REMOTE this place is and how great its internet is despite being so REMOTE, something the property manager will blow out of the water a few minutes later when he mentions being located only fifteen minutes away, but I digress. When the find the house, Rebecca inexplicably asks Margot: “What, do we just knock?” No, Rebecca, climb up onto the roof and shimmy down through the chimney. Don’t forget to bring gifts!

The actress who plays Margot (Bridget Rose Perrotta) – perfectly lovely and not at all annoying

Turns out they don’t need to knock because the front door is wide open. Rebecca’s filming now because Margot wants to do the talking, and I guess she can’t do both at the same time. I kinda wish she could though, because she keeps turning around and giving Rebecca this annoying, muggy smirk while the estate manager talks, and I have no idea why she keeps doing this. I think she just can’t stand not looking at the camera for more than fifteen seconds. Rebecca zooms in on a family portrait of the Carmichaels, and I must admit they got the 80’s look down right. Much better than movies usually do, in fact. Not everyone wore neon bike shorts and fingerless gloves, people. Most of us had frizzy hair and wore makeup that made us look a good 15 years older, and the most unflattering dresses and pants AI could dream up. Seriously, we all dressed like bad Saturday Night Live characters. Moving on.

Apologies for the subtitles this is the only image I could find

The estate manager garbles out that the estate owners both do and do not let people stay there in the same breath. OK, dude. He mentions that most people who do stay there never make it more than a few days, but he’s already said the owners don’t want anyone staying for more than a few days. Who knows. They walk around and look at the rooms. At one point Rebecca, goddess bless her, asks what a button does that’s on the wall, even though it’s clear it’s attached to a speaker that someone might use to communicate with other parts of the house. Did Rebecca hit her head on the way over? Anyway, she zooms in on the button so we all know that it’s going to mysteriously go off later.

They walk into the youngest daughter’s room, Catherine, and again I say this movie gets the 80s right. So much wallpaper. And curtains. And a full-sized bed that I hope is not the exact one she was slaughtered in, even if it is in the exact same place. We see a photo of Catherine – barrettes and acid-washed denim shortalls. Heh. Then the dude, whose name is Donald, exposits that Catherine wanted to be a moviemaker and was always filming around the house. That will be convenient later.

They visit the master bedroom, and Margot asks Donald if he thinks the father was the murderer. She asks this as if it’s an engaging and totally appropriate thing to ask, while Don’s non-response indicates otherwise. The tour continues, with Donnie pointing out a locked room he doesn’t have a key for. That might be important later. Then he takes them into Patrick’s room, where he ruminates on how sad it is that Patrick’s dead body was never found. If this is the tour Donald gives everyone who comes to the house for a visit, I can understand why no one stays very long. Maybe you could just point out the amenities and leave the bloody murders to the internet, Don? It might help. Although it’s so REMOTE maybe the murders are the only reason anyone visits.

Damn, this movie is getting into it fast. Rebecca, still filming, is marching up the stairs looking for Margo. She finds her standing in a hallway staring into the formerly I-don’t-have-a-key-for-it locked storage room. The door is now open. It’s at this point I notice that Margot is tall, y’all. The room she’s staring into is full of what looks like carnival gear. Signs, toys, and clowns. So many clowns. Including two life-sized clown statues that are not the evil clown from the original, but are still horrifying (albeit not as horrifying as the original because nothing is as horrifying as that one). One of the two looks so incredibly real I fully expected it to turn its head or blink and give chase, but before it can do that a voice calls out from below. It’s Margot’s brother, Chase, who is there to help with filming.

Rebecca is not happy about this, saying that Chase is “a liability,” but he never does anything to indicate that throughout the film, so whatever. Kind of like with Margot’s backstory, he has one but it’s not particularly compelling. Margot, however, is thrilled to see him. I get the feeling they haven’t seen each other in a while, and Margo immediately begins peppering him with questions. He mentions that he is seeing someone, and Margot practically explodes. I have to admit she’s kind of cute here; for once her inquisitiveness is endearing and not annoying. “Who is she? Is she beautiful? Is she smart? Are you getting married tomorrow? What’s her name?” Maybe it’s the woman Chase hooked up with in that one Lifetime Christmas movie I saw him in? Moving on.

The talking heads cut in to share Margot’s back story. When she was 10 she and Chase were taken to a County Fair, and some strange man tried to lure her into the woods. She ran away but was not able to identify the man to her parents or the police. Later, several other girls went missing from the fair, assumedly taken by the same man. So the thinking now is that Margot was obsessed with solving crimes to make up for her failure to prevent the strange man from hurting others. I guess as a backstory it’s okay, but it’s nothing special for a horror movie.

Chase says he’s not much of a sloth instead of sleuth, and I mean, really? He’s a grown man and he’s unfamiliar with that word? Maybe Rebecca is right about him. We do get his backstory, which is that recently he went missing for two days and no one knew where he was. Margo asked him to come help her with the investigation to help him, somehow, I guess by keeping an eye on him or giving him something to do. Again, I can go with this, but it’s pretty weak. He’s clearly a grown man; why would anyone be concerned if he checked out for two days? Moving on.

The next morning Rebecca films herself changing the sheets on the bed to give us our first scare. She narrates as she makes the bed about how Margot told her to film everything, and then she swings the camera around to face her so she can get herself and the freshly made bed in the shot. Only now Catherine is on the bed, looking quite murdered indeed. It’s a fun, gory shock; just the sort that this franchise does so well. Some creepy strings slip in, which isn’t supposed to happen in found footage, but that’s not something that’s ever bothered me. Slowly Catherine’s head turns to look at Rebecca, which must be a challenge with only one eye.

Off they go to an antique store that is supposed to have a lot of items from the Abaddon Hotel. Maybe the original clown will be there? It’s not, but an old grandfather clock is. Rebecca is familiar with this make of clock, and she knows there’s a secret storage compartment on the side of it. Why is Rebecca better at this than Margot? Anyway, she gets the compartment open and pulls out an old necklace, a can of old film, and some letters. Margot immediately sticks it all in her purse while Rebecca objects – I’m not sure which side I’m on here. The clock belongs to the store, but they have no idea anything’s there, soooo. Yeah, I’d probably swipe that stuff too.

Meanwhile, Chase is at home mugging for the camera, pretending to be a ghost and a true crime detective to mess with his sister. He’s actually funny here, so it works. Of course, he hears a noise and goes to investigate. He walks into the hall and sees a shadow crossing the storage room, but when he enters nothing has changed. And of course, the power is out, so it’s a bit dark even though it’s the middle of the day. We clearly hear a giggle, and Chase swings the camera around. Something is extending out from a doorway at the end of the hall. I swear the first time I watched this I thought it was a nose until it slowly pulled itself back finger by finger and I realized it was a hand. Then a girl in a mask peeps around the corner and stands there for a minute before slowly backing away. Chase, thank God, does not do that thing where he walks ever so slowly up to the doorway, but charges at it full speed instead. Points for Chase. As expected, there’s no one there, and then we hear Margot and Rebecca arrive.

Cognetti really knows how to pace a story. His stories are slow burns with nothing major in the way of scares, but there’s no denying how well he builds tension. The little music stings also help. And once again he has a character do the logical thing and show Rebecca and Margot what he filmed. Rebecca is freaked. Cut to the talking heads who tell us how what they found inside the clock was a “game changer” and that it’s wild it was sitting inside this old clock throughout the other three movies and no one ever found it. Everyone expected it to be footage of the hotel, but it’s footage shot by Catherine at Carmichael Manor. She wanted to be a filmmaker, remember *wink*?

As in all found footage movies that involve a character who wants to be a filmmaker, Catherine does not film anything that an audience would want to see, which is convenient since all we want to see is evidence of what happened at the house. But still, points off for Catherine, as it does not appear her death is any big loss to the filmmaking industry. We see what is clearly Catherine walking down the stairs, calling for Margaret and Patrick, her brother and sister. Thanks, movie, for naming one character Margo and another one Margaret. Points off, Cognetti. Anyway, we see the exact same gag the ghost pulled on Chase: a girl in a mask peeking around the corner. Catherine yelps and turns around and Patrick is there, laughing. Patrick is creepy, y’all. Margaret is wearing a godawful Laura Ashley dress that I’m pretty sure I owned back in the day. She announces that she’s off to rehearsal for Faust, which she is performing in soon. This is the only belief I am not willing to suspend here – the idea that two acting companies would put on the same dog of a play in thirty years is completely unrealistic, but whatever. We all know she’s never gonna make it to that stage as a drunk driver is about to kill her.

It’s nighttime and the gang is going over the items they swiped from the antique store. Meanwhile, the antique store in town goes broke and has to close, but hey, at least they’re still alive! I cannot tell a lie here; some of the clues these people dig up are really cringe-y. Anyway, they read some letters about death and bleeding from the eyes, and then the lights go out. They try to find the fusebox but the closet it’s in is locked. The power comes back on, which is good, but now there’s a red ball in the middle of the floor. Or maybe it’s a clown nose? That would make more sense given the context. Chase is concerned. He’s so concerned he asks to speak with Rebecca the next morning, but not before cringing me out again by mentioning how the sheets smell like an old sweater. This is not a callback to the first movie that anyone needed, but there it is. Anyway. He quite nobly tells Rebecca that if she gets scared and wants to leave, he will support her. Heh.

Rebecca has a Zoom call with a really bad actress. She’s showing her pictures of houses they can buy and flip, I guess, so this must be her boss. I’ll skip my rant about house flippers. After showing her a few slides, pictures of Carmichael Manor start showing up. The pictures start on the first floor and progress up the stairs until they’re right outside Rebecca’s room. In fact, we can see Rebecca in the photo, her back to us. The boss is understandably confused. And somewhat impatient, as Rebecca has stopped responding to her repeated questions about what’s going on. Rebecca keeps staring at the screen and clicking. Clicik! And there’s someone in the photo standing next to her. Click! Whoever is standing next to her has turned to face her. Click! And now we’re seeing Rebecca’s face, close up to the screen, with a very dead Catherine screaming into her ear. Heh. It’s a good one.

Rebecca’s computer shuts down without any explanation given to bad-actress-boss, and she’s concerned that she’s just lost her job. She’s way more concerned about the freaky dead girl getting up in her face, though, because she’s packing to leave as she rants about how she’s getting tired of being the one who supports Margot through all these investigations but can’t get Margot to support her need to get the fuck out of this house ASAP. Margo basically just wants to see if the footage of this event was recorded on Rebecca’s computer so she can see it, so to say she’s not listening to Rebecca at all is an understatement. But, of course, Rebecca capitulates for some reason and agrees to stay another night. We do get a gorgeous sunset shot of Rebecca sitting on the front porch talking to Chase, and it doesn’t help infuse the setting with dread but it is lovely. I wonder if this place still takes reservations?

I made the same face, lady, but not for the same reason

Cut to Margot finding a Polaroid photo in the pile of stuff she stole from the antique clock; it’s the same two clown outfits that are on the mannequins upstairs, except that it’s three mannequins upstairs according to Rebecca, which of course it can’t be, so up the stairs they all go to see who’s right. Except they don’t, because Margot runs right over her comments with her excitement about finding a connection between the mansion and the Abbadon. But hey, kudos to the movie for using a Polaroid photo within the actual time period that they were popular.

Margot’s enthusiasm is interrupted when that intercom Rebecca showed us earlier goes off, because of course it does. There are certain sounds that will forever freak me out, and loud doorbells and door knocks are high up on that list. OK, so this one is an intercom buzzer but the effect is the same. Chase checks the call center in the kitchen and reports back that the call is coming from Patrick’s room because of course it is. (Insert your “the call is coming from inside the house” joke here.) Margot has the stones to head right up to the room, so at least she’s willing to take the risks and tell Rebecca to stay behind, I guess. She and Chase creep into Patrick’s room and wouldn’t you know it, one of the two (or three) mannequins is in the middle of the room. These things look so damn real, y’all. Every time they do that approach-it-slowly-and-thonk-it-on-the-head-to-prove-it’s-fake thing I expect it to move even though I know it won’t. It’s wildly unsettling.

Meanwhile, downstairs Rebecca hears a creaky door opening in the foyer. Man, Cognetti is so good with the eerie sounds. I mean, that has got to be one of the most trite scary sounds in the world but it really works. Also effective is Rebecca’s fear here. Girl is freaking out. A red ball rolls out of the closet and yeah, it’s a ball not a nose, which I feel is a missed opportunity. Imagine a red clown nose bouncing down the stairs and squeaking with every step. Actually no, don’t imagine that because it’s hilarious and not scary at all. Let’s stick with the ball. Rebecca slinks her way into the closet and sure enough, there’s a damn clown in there now too. Rebecca and Chase are fucking sick of these clowns, y’all, and they are ready to bail. However, we cut to a scene taking place sometime later when Chase and Margot are hanging out in his room talking about what happened to him that time he ‘disappeared’ for two days as a fully grown man who absolutely can go off the grid for two days without being considered missing, but whatever. So I guess they’re not leaving.

Chase’s backstory is also weak, but here it is: he saw a girl. Where? When? Who knows. He just…saw a girl once. Okay. A little girl who was lost. So Chase wanted to help her, but she wasn’t real. She kept disappearing and reappearing all day long at whatever place Chase was when this happened. Or is he talking about something that happened to him at that same fair Margot was referencing earlier? I have no clue. Margot does say it’s OK that he saw a disappearing girl because that proves he needs to stay on his medication, so that at least partially explains why she was so freaked out when he disappeared; she assumed he was off of his meds and having a breakdown. But he insists he was taking his meds at the time, and the last thing the disappearing girl said to him was “Go with Margot,” and then Margot called him the next day about coming with her to Carmichael Manor. So okay, this is a recent thing and not something from far in the past. He says he didn’t put the two together until just that moment, which is more points off for Chase, because when a disappearing girl tells you to go with someone who then calls you out of the blue within 24 hours you should be able to make that connection immediately. Anyway, this story ends with Chase asking Margot if they can leave and she says yes, they will leave…tomorrow. Wrong damn answer, Margot. Chase does not stand up and smack any sense into her though, so another night it is.

It kinda looks like a dead body is under those covers, Chase

Somehow they make it through the night, but the next morning Chase’s stuff is just plopped in front of Margot’s door with no explanation. They find his phone and his medication in his room, but no Chase. Apparently, he texted Margot the night before asking “Was that you?” but Margot didn’t respond because Rebecca was sleeping. SERIOUSLY, Margot? How loud do you text, exactly? Your already troubled brother texts you in the middle of the night while staying in a clearly haunted house and you don’t respond? What is wrong with this woman? All the points off, Margot. All the points.

One of the talking heads, Bradley, cuts in with some candids of Chase while telling us that he’s seen Chase’s last video. Remember the talking heads? Because I’d forgotten all about them. Cut to – no surprise here – Chase’s last video. It’s nice of Bradley to share it. Chase is drinking in his room and it appears to be some time after Margot left since he’s at least half-drunk now. I’m not sure he should be drinking with his medication, but given the circumstances, I can’t judge. There’s a knock at the door, and yep – I still hate that sound.

Chase opens the door and there’s no one there. He texts Margot, and we all know how that goes down. Good job, Margot. Cut to Chase in bed, whispering into the camera that someone is still knocking on his door but no one is ever there. They knock again. Still no one there. Inexplicably, Chase tells Margot via the camera that they are leaving in the morning no matter what, instead of packing his shit and leaving immediately. Why? He didn’t ride with Margot and Rebecca; he showed up later on his own, so he must have his own car here. Just leave, dude! He does not. Cut to him waking up in the dark and whispering that his door just opened on its own. Chase looks kinda hot when he’s lying in bed, not gonna lie. I’d Lifetime movie him, is what I’m saying. Anyway, he pulls a Paul from the first movie and turns on the light only to immediately freak out at what he sees – yep, it’s the OG black and silver clown from the original. OGC is facing the wall, but there’s no denying it’s him. The camera cuts away, and when it cuts back – you guessed it – OGC is facing him. He’s still scary as fuck, although I must admit he mixes polka dots and stripes well, which is a tough look to pull off. Points, OGC, for clowning in style.

I love Chase’s attempts to bargain OGC down from definitely killing him to just forcing him to leave the house; it’s not something we’ve seen anyone try before, but since it doesn’t work I guess we know why. “I’m just gonna leave now, my bad” doesn’t translate to clown, apparently, because as Chase tries to slip away OGC pulls a new move and starts following him. Damn, he walks now? Y’all really are screwed. Chase offers all the apologies, but nothing’s gonna slow that clown down now, and with a yelp Chase’s camera cuts out. So long Chase, we barely knew ya.

Time for a change of pace as we’re now watching Catherine’s footage pre-murder. The first thing we see is Patrick looking forlornly out the window of his bedroom. I think we now know who took that insane picture of him we saw when our talking heads were expositing. Patrick rightly tells her to stop filming his misery, but not before Catherine discovers Margaret’s bloody dress sitting on his dresser. I hate to say this, I really do – but there’s something about Patrick and Margaret. Imagine the world’s worst Lifetime romance and you’ve got the jist. Something ain’t right between those two, or wasn’t right, rather. Patrick babbles about bringing her back, and Catherine gives him the necklace Margot finds in the old Abaddon clock. Then we cut to a shot of Patrick pacing around in the front yard. Damn, Catherine has no boundaries at all – leave the guy alone, girl. Then cut to Catherine in Patrick’s room, opening the same chest that Margo found in the storage room. We can clearly see the three clowns in a mirror while she digs through it. Then we cut to the cringiest scene ever – Catherine found a sheet of music in Patrick’s clown trunk, and yeah, it’s OG Paul’s old spooky ditty, but with lyrics this time. It’s another callback that feels unnecessary to me, and ridiculously silly, especially with lyrics such as:

“Something’s coming/Cold the nightfall/All things die/And never come back/Throw the ashes/Grasp your crosses/Pray to him/You’ll never come back/Life’s a circle/Full of darkness/Stay with him/And never come back”

Look, I’m not expecting lyrical genius or anything, but could they seriously not find another word to rhyme with “back”? My middle school students wrote better poetry than this mess. Moving on.

Oh look, Rebecca wants to leave, and Margot insists on staying. This is certainly a new dynamic I’ve not seen before aside from in every other scene. Margot has the disappearance of Chase in her favor now, though, and Rebecca can’t argue with staying around in the hopes he will show up. Once again I think Margot is being manipulative; sure, she loves her brother, but if there’s one thing she loves more than any human being in her life it’s freaky clowns, and so they stay. I get that Margot has guilt over the deaths of those little girls she couldn’t help back in the day, but in her obsession with righting that wrong, she’s doing serious harm to the people who know and love her in the present moment. Get it together, Mags. Seriously.

Fortunately, we’re back to present-day footage. I say ‘fortunately,’ because I’m not a fan of most of the old footage shown in this movie. I get why it’s there, but it feels terribly forced and not all that interesting, considering we don’t know fuck-all about these characters aside from how they died, and they aren’t interesting enough to warrant learning more. Besides, I was a teen in the 80s and I know there’s no way Catherine could have been running around that house and hiding under beds with the size camcorders were back then. They were huge – and heavy. She might as well have been running around the house with another house on her shoulder.

It’s talking head time, as Brandon and Alicia fill us in on some of Andrew Tully’s backstory. I don’t care about any of it, so let’s cut to the chase (not to the Chase, of course, because he is no more). Tully met these two traveling carnies who ran a “Down a Clown” booth and the three of them moved to Rockland County to run the Abaddon Hotel and start a cult. They hired locals to work at the hotel and I guess draw them into the cult, and one of the locals they hired was Patrick. Got that? Moving on.

FINALLY, Rebecca convinces Margot that it’s time to leave, but now the car won’t start. My first thought was they should try Chase’s car, but apparently, he either walked there or teleported because there’s no other car in the driveway. Whatever movie. Rebecca loses it completely at this point, which prompts Margot to finally take the house’s threats seriously and insist they start walking rather than continuing to try and fix the car. For some reason, they do not take the road that they clearly drove on which led right to the house, but take off through the forest. Whatever movie. And isn’t Donald just fifteen minutes away? I mean that’s by car, yeah, but it at least indicates that help isn’t that far off. But no, off into the forest we go.

They pass by piles of old drums and the occasional rusty car, which isn’t unusual when one owns acres of land, because everyone’s crap has gotta go somewhere and where else is it gonna go. Maybe to Donald’s? He’s close after all. The piles of trash get weirder as they go, though; crosses with weird shit on them, an old hearse, an old RV, et cetera. Then something screams. Soon, in the distance, they see a hooded figure. Ah yes, the robed figures. We’ve seen them before. They start to run, and when the camera turns around, there are now three robed figures. They run faster. The eerie screams in the forest continue.

By the time they get back to the house, it’s almost dark. They hide out in Catherine’s bedroom and fight some more. Margot tries to apologize, but honestly, repairing your relationship at this point is unnecessary, Marge. Chase texts them. Margot texts back this time – good job Margot! – but it’s pretty obviously not Chase who is sending them messages. Margot hopes against hope that it really is him which is definitely the wrong move. The texts tell them that “Chase” is going to come to their room and soon there’s a knock at the door. Margot appears to be ready to open the door, very much against Rebecca’s wishes, but then the door bursts open on its own. Nothing is there, because of course, and Margot insists on walking out into the hall to see what’s up because honestly, at this point, why not. Man, Cognetti really knows how to work an old house; how many times have we seen the knocking on the door when no one is on the other side thing, but he still makes it work every time.

Chase texts again, telling them “They’re in your room now.” Rebecca finally drops the camera and takes off. Margot picks it up and chases after her. Rebecca charges down the stairs and out the front door. She’s decided to give the car another try, and as soon as she and Margot climb inside, we’re back to watching old footage of Catherine again, which is a pace-killer at first because we’re just watching stupid Patrick act like a freak some more, but then we hear a female giggle and dead Margaret appears in the hallway, and I have to admit it’s a pretty good scare. She’s wearing that Faust mask and her bloody dress, and the camera freezes on her standing in the hallway with her head tilted at a freaky angle. Then it’s talking head time as Alicia relays the events that led up to a mass suicide at the Abaddon. Then it’s back to Catherine, hiding out behind her bed and apparently filming herself, which led me to wonder where the parents have been throughout this whole thing. We know it’s the mother and Catherine who get murdered in their beds, while the father disappears as does Patrick, but in all the old footage it appears to just be Catherine in the house with Patrick. You’d think they would all huddle together while the madness happens, or that maybe Mom and Dad would be trying to protect her, but they are distinctly AWOL. I’m going to assume they’ve already been murdered and that Catherine has some weird sort of amnesia that has made her forget she has parents. Let’s move on.

Catherine sees a hooded figure run past the hallway and her resultant shrieking sounds exactly like an overexcited monkey. I don’t mean to judge the noises one makes as they’re being scared out of their wits, but I said what I said. Into the closet Catherine goes. Margaret’s voice whispers her name, and as Catherine opens the closet door we see Margaret’s dead body in the strip of light, which is effective as hell, and to make matters even more effective the Faust mask finally falls off and we see zombie Margaret’s face, looking a lot like the zombie girl who attacks Paul back in the original. She attacks Catherine. More monkey shrieks as the footage cuts out.

There’s not much left at this point but for Rebecca and Margot to try and start the car again and as the alarm blares see two hooded figures standing right in front of them. I’m not sure if a car alarm going off means a car is going to drive, but I’ll assume it does not because instead of running the fuck over them they run back into the house. There’s more forest shrieking – which does not sound like an agitated monkey by the way – and as they reach the house a bunch of red balls come bouncing out of a closet, which we barely see as they run up the stairs, and the movie is, well, balls out at this point. The tension Cognetti’s been skillfully building throughout the film has finally exploded, and when Margot hears Chase shouting for her in the hallway, she rushes out without thinking. At that moment Rebecca gets cell service, and we hear the 911 call we heard at the beginning of the film. Margot’s gone, and in one of Rebecca’s mad camera turns around the room Catherine pops into frame, looking good and murdered, and it’s time to bid Rebecca adieu, folks.

Now we’re down to Margot, because of course it isn’t Chase calling for her from his room. He’s there, all right, but his eyes have been gauged out and he is very much unalive, which Margot refers to as Chase “being hurt.” Way to downplay, Margot. She runs back to Rebecca’s room only to find the door locked because of course it is. Then Margot wheels around and sure enough, there’s the OG clown at the foot of the stairs. Well that’s unfortunate. Margot takes off to the other end of the hallway but now someone’s room – I’m guessing Patrick’s? – is glowing red, and OGC is hot on her heels at the other end of the hall. Margot hits a dead end – pun intended – and we see OGC walking towards her. At the last minute, Margot flips the camera around to look into it and say “It’s not over,” and then a big fat white clown hand covers her face and it’s, well, over.

Except it’s not, because Brandon has to cut back in and say some stuff about evil never dying, and then we see a photo of a little Margot standing in front of the Down-a-Clown stand, and as the camera pans over to show OGC standing in the booth the music gets super-dramatic, which means I guess that this is something we were not expected to have put together yet, except everyone has, and then there’s yet another cut, which shows Patrick lying face down somewhere, crying and saying he had no choice but to do what he did. Then we hear some muffled screaming that sounds like it’s probably the father, and Patrick yells at whoever it is to shut up and kills him, I think, because the screaming stops, and then Patrick walks into the frame wearing the OGC suit. He puts on the clown mask and walks off into a glowing red hallway, and I definitely did not put this part together so good job movie. Whiny wee Patrick is the black and silver horror clown? Now that’s a twist. And that folks, is IT.

All in all, I do like the way this installment lends some lore to what’s been established in the other films, which never was much, and even though some of it comes off as forced or illogical, it holds together for the most part. It certainly works better than either II or III managed to do, and the new setting provides a new world of scares for Cognetti and Co. to deliver, which is the real fun here. Clearly, there’s going to be another installment involving, quite unfortunately, the insipid and annoying Patrick, but as long as he stays dressed as OGC it should work. Here’s hoping.

Found Footage Fave: Leaving D.C.

Posted on June 26, 2024 by marey mercy

Reason for filming: A man moves from the city to the country and wants to share his experiences with his friends back in D.C.

Director/Writer/Star: Josh Criss

What’s the horror: Ghosts

Does the dog die? There’s one photo of a dead cat, but it’s pretty tame. The picture I mean. I have no idea about the cat.

Gore factor: None at all

Re-watch scale: Occasional re-watch – it’s a good one, but I hadn’t thought of it in years until a comment on my last review reminded me of it

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! Don’t scroll if you don’t want to know.

This is a pretty simple movie with a simple premise, so why exactly does it work so well? I think it works because Criss knows this character well, and goes into filming with a clear idea of what he wanted to do and why he was doing it. Yes, it’s a ghost story, but more than that it is a character study of a flawed man who doesn’t understand his motivations very well and struggles to control his impulses. In other words, he’s a lot like the rest of us, but his flaws are heightened by his OCD, and a lack of self-awareness.

He’s a character many of us can relate to, even if it is in a way that makes us cringe. In the first few minutes, Mark makes it clear why he’s made this move – he’s been listening to his friends talk for years about leaving the stress and mess of D.C. but no one’s ever done it, and he wanted to be the first to take action. “I’m not trying to be self-congratulatory,” he tells the camera, but it’s clear he is proud of being the one who didn’t just talk about getting out. He’s the one who got out. I can relate to this – there have been times in my life where I was “the one” who took some step others around me claimed they wanted to take and never did, and the results were a mixed bag. Sure, I was the one who made the complaint against the asshole boss, or quit my job to go back to school – but by being willing to make such moves I also left friends behind who I’d thought would follow my path, or, in some cases, at least support me more than they did. It really is true that talk is cheap – and anyone who’s ever taken such talk seriously knows that no matter how many background voices claim they want the same thing, they really don’t, and are quite happy to just keep talking, or complaining, or dreaming, while never changing a thing about their situation. So when one of us takes action, we usually end up doing so alone.

Such is the case with Mark. But he has a disorder that puts added pressure on him. He’s OCD, and the friends who’d been talking for years about leaving are his support group back in DC. So Mike has not only left the city, he’s left behind a support system that has helped him cope with his illness for decades. And as he’s about to find out, they aren’t interested in following in his footsteps. People are busy, and many of our friendships are determined by proximity – the easier it is to connect with someone, the more connected we become. But even one small obstacle can end a friendship these days, or at least transform a close personal one into little more than an acquaintance.

But for Mark, the friends he’s left behind are also the ones who best understand his OCD, and ironically, he needs them more than ever when he leaves them behind. He also might have an ulterior motive involving one of the women in the support group, Claire – he mentions her specifically when talking about having visitors, and her name comes up several times when addressing the group. Perhaps she’s the main person he was trying to impress by making this move, or perhaps he thinks putting some distance between himself and the group will give him an opportunity to get to know her outside of those parameters. Regardless, it’s clear Mark is proud of what he’s accomplished and wants the group to be proud of him too. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s one way in which Mark’s expectations are unrealistic. He needs them too much to have moved so far away from them. There will be other examples of this as the film goes on, but it’s notable how well Criss sets up this personality flaw from the beginning of the film.

All of the videos we watch are ones Mark makes to share with his support group, which is a very realistic reason to keep filming. He never does that thing where, while being chased by a demon or something, he picks up the camera and runs with it – something that adds to the realism of the film. Every video we see is one he uploads for the group, as well as a few livestreams here and there, but they all make total sense and don’t require any suspension of belief like so many found footage films do. It’s quite effective and really does feel as if we’re watching Mark’s communications with his friends.

We get a video of Mark showing off the house, and then another of him chopping wood to prove to everyone who said he wouldn’t be able to make it in the country that he can handle it. There are a lot of little hints like this that flesh out the character and his situation; it’s clear Mark resents such comments and is determined to prove naysayers wrong. Again, it’s understandable; what’s questionable is the extreme to which Mark has gone to prove his point. He truly is in the middle of nowhere, and it’s at least implied that he has never lived like this before. He also comes across as if he’s performing for the camera rather than being genuine with what he shares. Criss does a good job of creating a character who is still quite attached to his support group, and it’s incongruous with what he’s just done. So there’s tension even before ghostly things start happening in the woods around his house.

Apparently the actor did all his own stunts

Mark drives into the nearest town and receives a card from the support group, which is nice, although he makes note of the fact that all Claire could muster was “best wishes.” Clearly he wanted more, but he pretends it’s just a joke, which is kind of grating. More on that later. He then shares a video of himself taking a hike in the woods – he’s come across a tree that has a cat skull nailed to it, which is less than comforting to be sure, but who knows how long it’s been there. It doesn’t bother him too terribly much, and neither do the twig snapping sounds he hears later while taking a break to talk to the camera. But when he goes to sleep that night he hears a terrible screaming sound that wakes him up and prompts him to make yet another video, where he discusses how he spent the rest of the night listening to animal sounds on the internet to try and identify what he heard. We’re starting to see clearer signs of Mark’s OCD, as he seems incapable of letting the noise go and getting some rest. In fact, the next night Mark borrows trouble by leaving a recorder outside his window to see what sounds he hears the next morning. I mean, you’re out in the middle of nowhere, dude; if you actively listen for sounds to freak you out you WILL hear some.

Honestly not a lot of of visuals in this film to share but I’m trying

I can’t help but wonder how different Mark’s experience would have been if he hadn’t put that recorder outside his window that night. It’s hinted at later on that his responses to the ghostly happenings encourage them to continue. Sure enough, when he uploads the audio file the next morning, he finds something strange. First, he hears some jets flying overhead; another noise ends up being an owl. Just watching the screen as Mark skims through the audio file is stressful; we both want and don’t want him to find anything. But he does find something around 3:11 AM – and it’s disturbing. It’s a woman’s voice, although it comes out as a sigh: why, it says, in a whispery wail. Then a moment later, why are you here. But it’s all run together as if coming out in one struggling breath, as one raspy word: whyyyyareyouhere? It’s really well done and creepy as hell. There’s no way Mark is going to be able to let this go. It’s also likely he’s going to deal with it in a manner that makes things worse, rather than better. Unfortunately, that seems to be a habit with this guy.

Mark’s audio file. It’s more interesting than it looks, I promise.

Mark tells us that he’s not going to make a big deal out of it, but he is going to keep recording audio files at night to try and figure out what it is. He also mentions that he’ll be driving into DC soon to meet with a client, and he’ll be attending a support meeting while he’s there. He sounds almost too excited about this, making us once again wonder why he moved away in the first place. Before he makes the trip though, he shares a recording of another night’s noises. Sure enough, he hears something again – it sounds like someone chopping at a tree. The oddest thing about these sounds is that within mere seconds the noise goes from distant to quite close to Mark’s house, which isn’t logical. What could move that fast?

There’s nothing else on the recording, so Mark concludes by saying he feels it’s a good thing that he’ll be going back to DC the next day. He looks really defeated as he says this; as if he’s starting to realize what he’s done to himself by making this move.

But the next video is surprisingly upbeat. Mark is making the video just for Claire, whom he apparently went out for drinks with after the meeting he attended. A few too many drinks, he says, following up with how excited he is that she’s coming to visit him the next day. It’s a subtle tension-builder, the fact that Claire has agreed to visit Mark, but probably did so when she was drunk, which makes us wonder if she really wants to go. Not Mark though – he’s pretty convinced that they’re going to have a great time, and he’s downright giddy that she’s coming, and that they hooked up when he was in town. Honestly, it would be a sweet video if we were sure Claire reciprocated his feelings. I found myself wondering why Mark wasn’t taking Claire’s state of mind into consideration at least a little bit, instead of being all in on the idea of them being a couple; there’s definitely a commitment Mark has to his own interpretation of things, and it comes across as a bit cloying, even pushy. There’s a definite lack of self-awareness in Mark that makes him an unreliable narrator, and nowhere is that more evident than in his dealings with Claire.

On a side note, I also wonder how this development may have hindered any help Mark might have gotten from the group about how to deal with the strange situation he’s found himself in. At this point, he’s only focused on Claire and her upcoming visit; he seems convinced that getting together with her will solve all his problems. It won’t – and awkwardness around her will likely make his interactions with the group as a whole more uncomfortable for everyone.

Her face when she gets out of her car makes this clear to everyone, except Mark.

Criss makes a good choice here, by having Claire request he turn off the camera and having Mark actually do that, rather than doing that thing FF movies do where one person whines about the camera while the other person refuses to turn it off for hours on end. We simply cut to that night, with Claire crawling into bed in her pajamas while Mark quite rudely complains about her wanting to sleep in her own bed. I can’t imagine why Mark would be expecting sex given how distant and uncomfortable Claire has been since her arrival, even if they did sleep together back in D.C. Whatever their situation may be at this point, Claire’s face says it all: Mark has clearly been pressuring her all day to show him affection that she doesn’t want to give, and she is over him at this point.

This is such a cringy scene, as Mark snarks on about how Claire is all ready for bed with her pillow perfectly placed and her body under the covers. She actually pulls the covers over her head to get away from him, yet Mark seems to think he’s being charming, or that they’re just having a little spat. It’s honestly more uncomfortable than the strange voice we heard on his audio recording, and I am sure Claire’s asking herself the same question the voice had for Mark: why am I here? There is no doubt in my mind Claire will be gone before Mark gets up the next morning, but unfortunately whatever’s been lurking in Mark’s woods decides to act up again, and poor Claire has to wake Mark up because she’s frightened. She must have been really scared, because you just know waking Mark up was the last thing she wanted to do.

But she does wake him up, so our next video starts around 3:00 in the morning. The wood-chopping sounds are back, and while Claire is understandably frightened, Mark isn’t doing much to help calm her down. He argues with her about the possibility that someone is out there chopping down a tree, although that is exactly what it sounds like, and at one point he even shouts out the window “I’ve got a gun!” which he does not. His behavior is inconsistent, since in the past he’s been exactly as scared as Claire is now, and rather than agreeing with her that the sounds are creepy he’s arguing with her about it. It’s a dick move, and just one more way Mark’s behavior is erratic and illogical – he’s been wanting someone to believe him, and here’s Claire, totally confirming that the sounds he’s been hearing are real, but he puts her down for being scared instead because he wants to be macho man, I guess, or he’s still mad at her for sleeping in the guest room. Who knows what his motivation is here – I guarantee you Mark doesn’t.

Claire dashes away from the window, wailing that she can’t stay any longer, but Mark argues against her driving away in the dead of night on an unlit road, which – he isn’t wrong. The camera cuts off for a moment, and the next thing we see when it cuts back on is Claire curled up on the bed sleeping. “It took two Valium but Claire finally fell asleep,” he whispers as he films her, and I can’t help but wonder if Claire knew she was taking two Valium or not. I don’t think Mark is that big of a creep, but I can’t be sure, which is exactly how the movie wants me to feel. “There’s no reason to let this ruin everything,” he whispers, again revealing the depth of his self-deception. Everything is ruined, dude. Seriously.

Cut to the next morning, and Mark is filming a small chopped-down tree he’s found close to the house. He wanted to show this to Claire to let her know she was right, but Claire has already dipped out, and Mark is not happy. “It was creepy, but it doesn’t justify you leaving me at first light,” he says angrily. “Not that you let me touch you anyway.” Yikes, Mark. Just yikes.

Cut to Mark making a final video just for Claire. He tells her he won’t be communicating with her directly anymore, and that he’ll leave it up to her to decide whether or not they’re going to continue their romantic relationship. It’s clear Mark’s still angry, but I also can’t help feeling a bit sorry for him as he looks pretty pathetic sitting in his kitchen all alone, talking about these weird things that are happening on his property and how the local sheriff doesn’t much care. These two aspects of his life – his loneliness at the loss of Claire as a potential partner and his frustration about the house situation – are converging in ways that will most likely result in more anger and denial, and I kind of want to shake him. He needs to pick one of these things to work on and let the other one go, but he’s not going to do that and we know it, no matter how many times he tells Claire he won’t be bothering her again. It’s also worth mentioning that Mark’s interactions with Claire come across as pretty manipulative on top of everything else, which isn’t a good look.

We cut to Mark in front of his computer, addressing the group this time, and ready to download and listen to another audio file. This time he hears something different around 3:11 am – a flute. Mark is understandably baffled. We’re just staring at the audio file as he goes back over and over the few seconds of flute playing, and I was struck by how Mark has hours and hours of audio here, including the sound of crickets chirping and owls hooting in the night, and the birds tweeting as the sun rises, but his sole focus is on the ten seconds when a flute played in the night. Between obsessing over these little moments of irregularity during these negligible seconds of time in the dead of night, and using most of his waking moments to make videos for the support group he left behind in DC, Mark has completely lost focus on why he moved in the first place. He could be enjoying the sounds of nature, the silence, the life away from the city, the opportunities he has to learn new things and live a different, less stressful life; but instead, he’s obsessing over a few creepy sounds and clinging to his past life via the group. In other words, Mark is not adjusting well to his new life at all. It’s not that the creepy sounds aren’t concerning, but rather that at the moment, nothing threatening is happening, and Mark could have chosen to leave the noises alone and save all this worry for when/if something truly dangerous happens.

Now Mark’s standing out in the woods talking about how he drove an hour and a half each way into town to buy himself a “Do not fuck with me drunken scumbags apparatus” – aka, a handgun. This doesn’t feel like a wise decision, but Mark is almost giddy over this latest purchase, even though he lied to the shop owner about his experience with guns (which is zero) to clinch the sale. Mark’s not handling things well, you guys. He fires off a test shot that manages to hit the target he’s pinned to a tree, which Mark responds to with much fist-pumping and shouting. “Stay away from my house, ya freaks!” Is Mark really prepared to kill someone if he manages to catch them on his property at this point? I don’t think so, but Mark doesn’t appear to have given it much thought either way. He’s got his gun, and he’s shown the group (especially Claire) that he’s not going to take any more guff from whoever’s messing with him, so there you go.

Next Mark shares a video going over the latest night’s recording. Sure enough, he hears the flute again, and we are treated to an extended deep dive into Mark’s obsessiveness as he explains how last night’s recording started exactly sixteen seconds later than the night before, and if he starts that night’s recording sixteen seconds earlier, the bits of flute playing line up exactly so that what it played on the first night stops just as what was played on the second night is starting, and it’s a continuation of the same piece of music. I mean, okay Mark, that’s weird, but what’s the point? It’s not like this helps him figure out what’s going on in any way, and it’s also likely that no matter how the two snippets of music appeared there would be a way to line them up and convince yourself that they were related. In other words: stop sweating the small stuff, Mark. It ain’t helping. Plus, can you imagine being a member of the group back in DC at this point, having to deal with all these uploads? They have to be feeling resentful by now – Mark chose to move away, and yet he’s trying to drag them all with him into this new drama they never wanted. I have to believe Mark’s stats on these videos have gotten really low by now.

Oh great, now Mark’s live-streaming. It’s 3:09 am and he’s waiting for the sounds to begin. He counts down to 3:11 and sure enough, right on the dot there’s a noise – but this time it’s his telephone ringing. No one’s on the line of course, but this sure seems like an escalation of whatever is happening; the noises are now coming from inside the house, if you will. He tries to call the number back using the old *69 method, but it goes instead to a phone call he got earlier in the day as if there was no record of the 3 AM phone call. We know this because Mark is whispering it all into the camera as he films himself looking out the window. There’s a few more chopping noises, and then we’re out.

Oh look, now Mark has bought a field camera and he’s mounting it to a nearby tree. On this trip into town, the hardware store owner told him that the house he bought was the home of a suicide and disappearance years earlier; a father and his daughter lived there until Dad hung himself one night and his daughter – who supposedly was schizophrenic – was never found. Dammit, shop owner, why tell Mark this? I hope Mark haunts you with shop visits every week as punishment. Did I mention that Mark is getting more and more annoying with every passing second? His anger is palpable, and it’s making him increasingly miserable to watch.

At least we don’t have to listen to more audio the next morning, because Mark is more concerned about his field camera, which was stolen during the night. He films himself calling the local sheriff, who could care less. In fact, we can clearly hear the guy placing a bagel order while Mark is talking to him. Heh. Mark is less than pleased. On the one hand, you can understand the sheriff’s apathy here; some dude bought a field camera that he inexplicably set up right next to his house and didn’t lock down, and it got stolen. Whatever dude. On the other hand, there’s a lot of buildup to the use of the field camera that the sheriff doesn’t understand, so his lack of concern is troubling. There’s no doubt about it, Mark’s on his own here, and despite his increasing unpleasantness, I do feel bad for him. All this is familiar movie haunting territory, after all; no one ever believes the hauntee in these things.

Well, I spoke too soon, because now Mark is sharing an audio file with the group. Oh, Mark. He hears the tree tapping, still moving from far away to incredibly close in a second or two, which is impossible, and then what is clearly the sound of someone snatching the camera from the tree. Mark’s going back to the hardware store, y’all. Let’s hope the shop owner keeps his mouth shut this time. Mark comes back and sets up his new camera, all locked up and secure this time.

Mark films himself uploading the SD card from his camera after letting it run all night. We get some snaps of him as he’s setting the thing up, and then at around 3:00 AM we get 3 shots of a person-shaped shadow walking past it, looking as if whatever’s casting the shadow is wearing a hooded cloak. Oh dear. Then we get a picture of the tree with the cat skull, which is miles away, but the time stamp shows it happened the next second. The next picture is of Mark taking the camera down. Okay, Mark, now you can panic. We watch him try to reason his way through the possibilities – someone stole his SD card and replaced it with those photos, the time stamps are faulty, or he’s being haunted. Yep, that sounds about right. I have to believe there’s almost no one watching these uploads to the group anymore, though; and we already know the cops aren’t going to care, so Mark’s screwed at this point.

Mark decides to get a security system installed in his home. So much for that whole moving-to-the-safety-of-the-country thing. He also says he’s not going to do any recording when he goes to bed that night which, honestly, good for you Mark. Then he follows that up by saying he’s going to have some wine even though he’s not supposed to drink alcohol with the medications he is on. Bad for you, Mark. He also tells the camera that he posted about his situation in a paranormal forum, which he is clearly embarrassed about, but all he’s gotten so far is people calling him a liar, which I think is odd for a paranormal forum but what do I know. One woman asked him for more information, but Mark is convinced she just wants to sell him something, and besides, his security system is being installed that day so he’s more concerned about that than anything.

The next day Mark is hungover because he drank the whole bottle of wine. Self-destructive much, Mark? He’s making worse and worse choices as time goes by, and it’s hard to tell which is doing him more damage – the noises in the woods or his declining mental health. Oh wait, it’s definitely the noises in the woods, because Mark found the first game camera, the one that got stolen, just sitting on a table in his bedroom that morning. Wha? How’d that happen? Even worse, there are photos on the SD card of that camera, and they are…not good for Mark.

The first picture is of a hallway in Mark’s house. Yikes. The next one is a shot of the same hallway, but taken from the other end of it. The time stamp, however, says both photos were taken at the exact same time. Then there is a photo of the stairs, and another one right outside his bedroom door. Taken just a second after the hallway photos. Oh, Mark. I don’t think a security system is gonna do the job for you here, buddy. The next photo is really odd – it’s a picture of a dead cat (grrrrr) and a strange note next to it that says “Bunny by Vandal. Most beautiful tart. Killed her.” I wish this made some sort of sense but it doesn’t. All I can guess is that this is the cat whose skull is nailed to a tree in the forest. Google searching the phrases results in nothing but reviews of Leaving DC, so no, this is never explained. Then we get a picture of the cat skull again and some blurry tree shots.

Again: THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE, MARK

I think scenes like this are what make Leaving DC work so well. Mark just uploads this stuff and reviews it, but he has no explanation for any of it, and as the viewers, we never get one. This makes the format feel genuine; we are presented with this creepy stuff as Mark discovers it, and we’re as confused as he is about what might be going on. There’s no dramatic irony in this movie, and the audience is never privy to anything Mark isn’t already aware of. Nothing ever sneaks up behind him while he’s filming, and there are no photos with spooky shapes in them that we see but Mark doesn’t. We know exactly as much as Mark does, and with a few exceptions, we’re discovering new information in the same moment he is. In this regard, it’s probably one of the most honest presentations of found footage I’ve ever seen. It sticks to the original concept and doesn’t deviate from it for a second. It’s very effective.

Oh look, now the forest is giving us a live concert in the rain! Mark films himself listening to the flute playing in the distance at – you guessed it – 3:11 AM. He’s got his gun, but he makes it clear he’s not going to go outside to use it. Good call, Mark. Poor guy is despondent at this point, because despite all the “doing” about it he’s been doing, nothing’s changed. Well, some things have changed, but only on Mark’s end. He’s sleeping in later and later, and he’s upgraded from wine to vodka. He gets a response from a woman on the paranormal forums that he reads on camera – and in my opinion, this is where Mark seals his fate.

The woman tells Mark that she does believe there is a spirit surrounding his house, but she does not believe it means to do him harm. Her guess is that it is a female spirit that is still attached to the home because female spirits tend to be more attached to houses and locations than male ones. She tells Mark that if he will stop trying to film the spirit, or record it, or do anything it can interpret as him trying to “harm” it, the visitations will most likely go away in time. As a new male in the house, she believes the spirit is merely curious about who is residing there now. She also tells him the spirit is playing the flute for him, not to intimidate him but to connect with him. She says the spirit was most likely insecure and troubled in life and continues to struggle with these things after death, and if Mark makes her feel accepted and welcomed, ironically, she will calm down and eventually go away – or at least stop bothering him.

So there you go – this information sounds as likely as anything else Mark’s come up with so far, and at least someone has FINALLY believed him and taken his story seriously. So does this explanation ease Mark’s worries? Does he appreciate this woman taking the time to try and help him? Of course he doesn’t. He’s pissed she dared to claim that Mark is “harming” the spirit instead of the other way around. And he’s really mad her assessment of the presence is benign. He’s also terribly disdainful of the woman’s username – astralmom – and is disparaging about her belief in spirits and love and light, even though he’s the one who ventured into the paranormal forum asking for help. When this well-meaning, accepting, comforting woman offers Mark a real glimmer of hope, Mark shits all over it, and it is from this point on that I feel Mark is doomed. He makes a conscious choice to go in the opposite direction here, and it seals his fate. Thanks anyway, astralmom. You tried.

Oh hey, remember Claire? Mark’s next video is directed just to her, and from the moment it starts playing Mark is clearly piiiiisssed. He has this wiseass smarm thing he does with his voice and face when he’s mad, and it’s in full effect here, making me want to poke him in the eye with the cold end of a flute. It seems someone posted photos and videos in the Facebook group of a recent hike they went on, and from these, it’s clear Claire has started dating some other member of the group. I mean, how dare she? And how dare the group go hiking anywhere other than Mark’s property, where there’s nothing but miles and miles of forest in all directions? I mean, it’s a haunted forest, sure, but it’s Mark’s forest, and the group should be missing him enough by now to be beating a path to his door, but they are not, and Mark is furious. Josh Criss does a good job of making Mark unbearable, ridiculous, and sympathetic at the same time during this tirade. He made a massive mistake moving away from the city (Leaving DC, if you will) because instead of getting rounds of applause and accolades from his friends about taking the leap, he’s been haunted by wandering flute-playing wood-chopping weirdos, rejected by Claire, and left behind by the entire support group. There’s genuine hurt behind Mark’s anger here, and Criss successfully ties his real-world issues around Claire and the group closely to the ongoing forest-ghost problems. It’s hard to say which one breaks Mark down more, but if I had to pick, I’d say it’s this final rejection from Claire and the group. Poor Mark.

It’s 2:30 in the morning, and oh dear. Mark’s clearly drunk. There’s a bottle of vodka and a shotglass on the windowsill as we listen to the flute concert going on outside his window. The flute is pretty loud and echoes over the forest; it almost sounds as if there’s more than one playing now. He’s also got his gun. Booze and guns in West Virginia – who says Mark isn’t acclimating to his environment? Mark shouts at the flute to be quiet – astralmom’s advice be damned – and it stops for a few hopeful minutes before starting up again. Mark’s had enough. He cocks his gun and goes outside. We stay with the camera’s perspective, looking out the open window of his bedroom. We hear his new security system beep as he opens the front door, which is a great touch, and the flute stops playing. A second later we hear a gunshot. Almost immediately, the camera tilts, and the focus floats up to the ceiling, then cuts out. And that’s it.

I believe this is what you’d call “rock bottom”

So, did Mark successfully kill whatever was out there? I doubt it, considering how quickly the camera gets shut off after we hear the gunshot. It’s been established that the ghost, entity, presence, whatever you want to call it can move about almost in the same second, so it makes more sense to me that the ghost shuts the camera off, not Mark. But where does that leave him? Did he try to shoot the spirit and miss, and if so, did the ghost kill him in response? Or did Mark go outside and turn the gun on himself? The camera doesn’t tell us; it just shuts down, just as it will when someone, or something, uploads this to the support group’s Facebook page. In the end, we don’t know any more about what happened to Mark out there than Claire or anyone else. And that’s just the way Josh Criss wants it. Well done, dude. And I seriously hope you are nothing like this character because if you are then I guess I owe you an apology for being hard on you. I’m assuming the house you filmed this movie in is yours, and that you are still alive and doing well. But if you ever get lonely who knows – maybe hit up astralmom and see she’s up for a visit. I think the two of you would really get along.

Horror Movie Fave: The Harbinger (directed by Andy Mitton, 2022)

Posted on August 3, 2023 by marey mercy

SPOILERS BELOW! Don’t read if you don’t want to know.

What’s the Horror: A deadly pandemic (yeah, I know, but I promise this one is worth watching)

Does the Dog Die? No animal cruelty in this one

Gore Factor: Maybe a 2? There’s really no gore to speak of here. Trust me, it doesn’t need it.

Character Quality: Excellent. Gabby Beans (as Monique) is captivating.

Re-Watch Scale: Not too often. Not because it isn’t amazing, which it is, but it’s a hard watch given that most of us, self included, really want to just forget all about the early days of lockdown, when no one knew what the hell we were dealing with and how long it was going to last.

SPOILERS AHEAD – LAST WARNING

The Harbinger came out in 2022, as did another film called simply Harbinger. I’m not sure if that’s why this one didn’t get as much attention as it deserves, but trust me, it deserves your attention. It deserves ALL the attention. Better than any pandemic-based movie I’ve seen over the past few years, The Harbinger serves as a sad, scary metaphor for death and how fear of it can completely dominate people’s lives. It also evokes the panic and trepidation of those early weeks and months of COVID-19, when everything, and everyone, felt dangerous, and learning how to navigate our lives in a different way felt daunting and depressing.

The Harbinger presents us with a world in still, silent turmoil: Monique has moved back into her father’s house with her brother to stay with them during the pandemic. She’s uprooted herself in order to ride out the crisis with her loved ones, hiding out at home and marveling over how they can now order groceries in advance and pick them up without making any contact with anyone (remember how novel that was in the beginning?). It’s the dead of winter, and while Monique and her family sit down for a warm family dinner, the view outside is cold, grey, and completely still – there’s nothing going on out there, no movement, no action, no life.

But there’s a twist here that, even though it’s not a detail the real pandemic contained, feels as real as COVID itself: in this version of the pandemic, when you die, everyone you ever knew immediately forgets that you ever existed. Let that sink in for a moment. The second you’re snuffed out, all of your loved ones forget who you are. And every time someone you love checks out, you forget who they were. Imagine it: All over the globe, people are looking at photos on their phones wondering who the hell that person is. And it’s you. Terrifying. Aren’t we all afraid of being forgotten after we’re gone? Isn’t so much of what we do in life an attempt to leave a legacy behind? Imagine being a parent and realizing that your children will forget you the instant you stop breathing. Now imagine being locked up in your apartment, looking at photos of strange people and wondering why the hell you’re surrounded by images of strangers. It’s horrifying, existential stuff. It harkens back to that first year of COVID-19, when the number of dead became so overwhelming we grew numb to it, unable to comprehend how so many human beings could perish in one day. And we weren’t even able to honor them with a funeral service. They just … died. And if they had to be hospitalized, that was another kind of disappearance, because you couldn’t visit them. You didn’t get to say goodbye. So many people died afraid and alone. And The Harbinger harkens back to those fears with astounding accuracy.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. It will take a while before anyone learns the truth about what The Harbinger does to any life it snuffs out. First, there’s a different dilemma Monique faces that will be familiar to all of us: she has a friend who lives in the city (I think it’s New York) and she is distressed. She’s in a very bad place, and she’s all alone. She’s a friend Monique hasn’t kept in touch with since college, but when they were close, Mavis helped Monique through a particularly dark time. According to Monique, Mavis saved her life, and Monique promised her that no matter what, she would do the same for Mavis if she was ever in need. And she’s desperately in need now. How many of us faced a situation like this throughout the pandemic? Going to visit a sick friend was an absolute minefield, and if a friend or family member needed anything at all, you had to evaluate whether or not helping them out was worth the risk. Monique decides it’s worth the risk, and against the advice of her family, she goes to help her friend.

A big part of Mavis’s distress is that she’s not just sick. She’s having visitations in her dreams. Nightmares from which she cannot wake. A horrible entity wearing an awful plague mask stalks her in her sleep. And it’s getting harder to resist it. Would it help just to know you’re not alone? Monique asks Mavis at one point, and damn, that hits hard. It should be such an easy thing to do, but during the height of COVID-19, it felt like an impossible task to accomplish for anyone. But Monique is a fucking hero. She made a promise, and once she arrives at Mavis’s apartment, she comes through for her friend, hugging her and even offering to sleep next to her so she won’t be so scared.

Unfortunately, human kindness in this situation means you risk being struck down by the same thing that’s tormenting the person you’re trying to help, and that’s what happens to Monique. She starts having bizarre dreams from the first night. So let’s talk about these dreams: Mavis describes how they’ve slowly increased in duration, to the point that now she sleeps for days at a time, unable to wake no matter what she does. The only reason she even knows she’s sleeping is because – she can’t go to sleep when she’s in them. She’s already asleep. And the plague doctor is always there, telling her it’s almost time for her to die, to fall asleep, and never wake up. Monique responds with empathy and support – exactly what anyone would do for a friend in this situation, except in this situation, showing up with empathy and support means you might be the next to die. It’s clear Monique doesn’t understand this, and whether or not she’d come to the aid of her friend if she knew is unclear. She probably would. It’s the sort of balance a lot of us had to deal with during the pandemic, and it forced us to make choices we never thought we’d have to make, to behave in ways we never thought we would behave. Suddenly, just extending a helping hand has disastrous consequences, and what that does to our collective psyche is incomprehensible.

Monique’s first dream reveals her as a child, walking through the snow with her mother. We can’t see Mom, but we hear her, calling Monique into the woods. She calls Monique “sparrow,” a detail that will matter later. Having already seen Monique with her family we know her mother has already died, and sure enough, instead of seeing her mother emerge from the woods, Monique sees a dark shrouded figure. Please don’t hurt me, she begs, and then we cut to Monique in the present moment, sitting upright on Mavis’s bed, still sleeping. She wakes up and checks her phone, only to find a long list of unreturned texts from her brother. Who knows how long she’s been asleep. Mavis is still snoozing, so there’s no way to know. Monique hears coughing from the apartment upstairs and goes out into the den to listen more closely. Her brother Facetimes her and immediately asks why she isn’t wearing her mask. And just like that, reality intrudes upon the safe little bubble Monique created with her friend. When it was just the two of them, it felt like the right thing to do to unmask and hug. But with her brother on the line asking questions, Monique struggles to justify herself. Again – such a familiar experience, right?

Her brother Lyle tells her their father started running a high fever the night before. They hope it’s not that, but they can’t be sure. Suddenly Mavis starts to scream, and just as suddenly, the ceiling caves in and the body of a little boy crashes through it, landing on the floor with a thud. He’s bleeding from his mouth. Panicked, Monique looks around for any sign of what the hell is going on, and through an open doorway, the image of the plague doctor appears. “He says it’s nice to meet you,” the ceiling kid says, and then Monique wakes up again – but is it for real this time? It’s already getting hard to tell. Damn, this plague moves fast, doesn’t it?

Lyle calls (again), but Dad is fine. And Mavis screams (again), but no one falls through the ceiling. Monique goes to Mavis, who has bitten her lip in an attempt to wake herself up. Monique asks Mavis to describe the entity to her, and she makes a sketch of it – looks like Monique is quite the artist given the quality of the sketch. Then they post the picture online everywhere they can, asking if others have seen the same thing. I’m surprised they don’t know anything about the plague doctor and his mask, but the internet has to tell them what it is. While they’re reading about it, they hear an ambulance siren stopping in front of the building. It’s the little boy. He was real, and he had the plague, and the ambulance is there to take him away. He’s dead.

We cut to nighttime. It’s raining as we peer through a rainy window. A woman is lying in bed as a young girl approaches her, and we see that it’s young Monique again, and the woman in bed is her mom. She crawls into bed with her, frightened by the storm, and saddened that she’s forgetting what her grandmother looks like. She’s afraid people will forget her when she dies. Mom reassures her that the end of her life is a long way off, then points at a picture of her grandmother to reinforce to Moniqe that she will be remembered. But the plague doctor is there, hiding in the corner of the room, and when Monique sees it her Mom changes. Some sort of black, thick tongue sneaks out from between her lips, and she shoves Monique under the covers. As she fights, Monique (in adult form) suddenly finds herself in some sort of morgue-mobile; it’s cold and blue and there are dead bodies on either side of her.

She bangs on the walls of the truck, begging it to stop. It stops. She leaps out, and finds herself in a dark room. A flashlight is at her feet. She picks it up and starts to walk through a hallway, trying to find a way out. Instead, she finds the little boy who died in Mavis’s apartment building. I can help you wake up, he tells her before plunging a needle into her temple. Monique wakes up screaming.

Unfortunately, Mavis is in worse shape than Monique. She’s standing stock-still in the middle of the bedroom, fast asleep. It’s unclear how long she’s been standing there. She’s urinated on herself. Monique cleans it up. It’s another reminder of how humiliating illness can be, how undignified our bodies can be as we die. Yet Monique is there to take care of her, even though she’s paying a heavy price. When Mavis screams herself awake, Monique admits that she’s seeing the plague doctor in her dreams now, too. Mavis is understandably distraught. She feels like she never should have called, that she’s doomed her friend just as surely as she is doomed herself. It’s a sucky way to feel, for sure, but there is nothing to be done now except deal with it. Monique isn’t ready to give up. She’s made an appointment with a demonologist for them to meet with on a Skype call.

The demonologist doesn’t have good news for the two. This entity they are seeing is NOT the plague, she says, but it feeds on the fear the plague creates. What it is, according to her, is a bad idea. It lodges in your head and won’t leave. This being has come to be known as The Harbinger because once you see it, it’s all over. It uses anything and everything it can to deepen your fear and confusion. And the more fear it generates within you, the deeper it digs – until at last it consumes you entirely. Everyone you’ve known, everything you’ve ever done, even everything you own disappears when it finally erases you. Because of this, it’s impossible to track. No living person even knows there’s something to track at all, because they’ve all forgotten the dead ever existed. The demonologist only knows about it because the process isn’t perfect; it often leaves relics behind like a photo or a piece of clothing, and through talking to so many people some relics of their stories have stayed in her memory. But she doesn’t remember anything about them. And that’s all the information she has – there’s no solution to the problem she can offer. She’s just hoping to stop the spread of the fear that invites the entity in.

Monique and Mavis are stunned. It’s not just the dying, Mavis tells Monique. It’s the cruelty of it, that no one will remember her when she’s gone. She shows Monique a picture of a man who is looking at her with love. Mavis has no idea who he is, but she can tell it is someone who loved her, but she has no recollection of their relationship. They both surmise that this is the person who infected Mavis. She probably loved that man too, Mavis concludes, but now he’s just gone as if he never existed. She cannot remember him. And she knows that when the plague doctor finally gets his hands on her, no one will remember her either. It’s brutal.

And it’s too much for Monique, who waits until Mavis falls asleep that night and then writes her a note before taking off. She drives back home to her father’s house, where her dad and her brother are both angry she’s come back after being exposed to the illness. Welcome home!

There’s a surreal conversation that takes place here; the camera cuts between close-ups of Monique and her brother as they discuss the consequences of her return. Close-up of the brother, talking through his mask: Monique has to isolate herself in her bedroom. Cut to close-up of Monique, also talking through her mask: yes, yes of course. Back to Lyle: and you have to wear your mask everywhere outside of your room. Cut to Monique: Absolutely. I promise. Cut back to Lyle: Did you do what you set out to do? Did you help your friend? Cut back to Monique, but this time – she’s not wearing her mask. Tears fill her eyes as she starts to tell them how she abandoned Mavis in her time of need, but Lyle cuts her off. Where is your mask? he demands of her, and Monique reaches instinctively for her face where her mask should be, but it’s gone.

Lyle’s body language shifts, as does that of their father. Lyle rushes Monique and grabs her roughly, dragging her up from the sofa and towards the stairs. “I’ll go! I’ll go!” Monique shouts, trying to get Lyle to stop manhandling her, but he persists, as Dad shouts at her to get upstairs. It’s another harsh reality of the pandemic that’s easy to understand: as soon as you’re infected, and at the point where you need the most love and support, you’re cut off entirely from everyone, left to handle the illness on your own. You know you’re a danger to others, but the instinct NOT to isolate is still there; as soon as Lyle shoves Monique into her room and slams the door, she turns around to see her dead mother sitting in her bed. Monique immediately starts pounding at the door, begging to be let out, but of course, no one comes to help her, because as far as they know this is just Monique trying to get out of isolation. Now the Harbinger appears before her, and she turns back to the door, pounding and shouting until she knocks a hinge loose and collapses onto the door as it smashes to the floor.

Monique stands up and looks around. She’s no longer at home; she’s in a funeral parlor. There’s an open casket at the end of the hall – it’s the boy from Mavis’s apartment building who died. Monique hears a sound – it sure sounds like Mavis screaming – and when she turns back around, the boy’s body is no longer in the casket. The lid slams shut, and the boy is standing behind it. He starts to walk towards her, and she takes off through a door at the back of the room. She ends up in a morgue, complete with a dead body on a table, and, still hearing the little boy’s footsteps behind her, hides inside an empty cabinet. The boy, of course, knows where she is, and gives us a good jump scare when Monique peeks out from behind the door. But he’s not following her to try and harm her; he wants to tell her that there’s a way to defeat the Harbinger. He knows this because he died from a disease that only adults were supposed to get, and that made him an aberration, even in the awful afterlife of the Harbinger. He wants to help her. Show me where you sleep, he says, and immediately they’re back in Mavis’s bedroom. The real Mavis and Monique are asleep in bed.

The boy tells Monique that the Harbinger is on its way, and soon the figure appears in the open doorway. Monique is frozen in fear, but the boy says the Harbinger is not there for her. It approaches the bed on Mavis’s side. We have to do something, Monique says, but the boy tells her they can’t because they are in a dream. They aren’t real, but the bodies on the bed are, and suddenly Mavis sits straight up and begins to scream. The Harbinger grabs at her and starts to drag her away as she screams and fights. Dream-Monique grabs her own sleeping body and starts shaking it, shouting at herself to wake up. We see Mavis as she is dragged off the bed and out the door, and as soon as she is gone Monique wakes up in Mavis’s apartment, alone. Every trace of Mavis has disappeared. It’s just an empty apartment. And Monique has no idea what she’s doing there. She’s forgotten Mavis already.

The landlord shows up to tell her that she can’t squat in an empty apartment, assuming Monique has been on some kind of bender. Monique has no idea where she is, or how she got there, so she calls Lyle, who’s upset with her for disappearing the way she did. He can’t understand how Mavis got into the city without her car, which is still at home (because she never drove into the city, since there is no Mavis now), and Monique can’t explain any of it. Lyle is frustrated, but kind, and the love between the two is clear, as is the strain Monique’s mental illness has put on their relationship in the past.

Once she’s back at home, Monique goes to bed, and as soon as she falls asleep she’s awake. Here we go again! She’s back in Mavis’s apartment, and it’s still furnished as if Mavis lived there. Monique has a moment of remembering, whispering Mavis’s name. The sadness in her eyes is heartbreaking. She walks into the den – the room where the little boy fell through the ceiling in another dream – and sits down on the sofa with a deliberateness that reveals her courage. She’s waiting for the Harbinger, and it’s clear she is going to confront it when it arrives.

And arrive it does, in dramatic fashion. Ol’ Harbinger is really pulling out all the stops for Monique here, materializing in the apartment on a wave of golden light. Monique stares at it knowingly before standing up and walking right up to it. They share a conversation that sheds some light on why Monique is not as afraid of the Harbinger as others might be: You have no family, the Harbinger tells Monique, in a voice that is clearly Monique’s own. You were never born. Just like you always wanted. So in a way, Monique’s past suicidal ideation has familiarized her with the Harbinger in some unconscious way, and the Harbinger is using this knowledge to get at her.

But Monique isn’t going down without a fight. She screams and digs her fingers into the open eyeholes of the Harbinger’s plague mask. Blood streams down its face. She grabs a knife, and in a flash, she’s stabbed the thing in the gut and tackled it to the floor. She saws off its head in a fit of rage, then covers its dead body with a sheet. Problem solved?

Unsure what else to do, Monique sits on the floor of the apartment and waits. Soon a bright blue light appears across her face, and there’s a knock at the door. She opens it, and the little boy is on the other side. The door no longer leads into the apartment hallway; it now opens onto the same bleak, snowy landscape Monique saw in her very first dream. She tells the little boy she’s happy to see him. He’s happy to see her too – but the green screen is really bad here. Ok, he didn’t say that last part, that was me. Moving on.

The little boy praises Monique for killing the Harbinger, then asks her if she wants to wake up. Monique didn’t realize that she could, and the boy says she can if she follows him. Out they go into the snowy woods. They make quite a pair, as neither one of them is dressed for chilly weather, but they don’t appear bothered. They walk deep into the woods until they come upon Monique’s bed nestled among the snowy trees. The boy encourages her to climb in, which she does. He tells her to close her eyes, and she asks him where he will go. He doesn’t know – maybe he’ll just disappear. Monique smiles at him kindly. I won’t forget, she tells him. The little boy smiles back at her. It’s a lovely moment.

She closes her eyes and wakes up in her bedroom. Her brother is there, and as soon as he sees that Monique is awake he calls out to their father. The two of them tell her about how she’s been unresponsive for three days, and how they had to badger their doctor to do something about it. The doctor ended up sending someone in a Hazmat suit to tend to her, and while they were there they administered all three of them a plague test. They were all negative. Damn, this just keeps getting better and better doesn’t it? And the light outside seems to agree – there’s no doubt this scene is brighter and more vibrant than any other scene in the movie up to this point. Monique is thrilled and clearly taken aback at all this good news.

We get some shots of a statue in the snow – the Angel of Hope, it says, and hey, why not? – and then a close-up of the family’s mailbox, which has a note on it reading “Thank you essential workers” with a heart drawn on it. These are good people, this family, and it’s a relief to know they’re all OK. It’s cathartic, after all the horror we’ve watched Monique go through so far.

Cut to Monique in her bedroom on her laptop, talking to the demonologist. She remembers the doctor, although not that the last time she met with her Mavis was there. She’s telling the demonologist about how she slept for three days straight without having any sort of dream, and the demonologist seems…significantly less enthused about this than one would expect. Monique notices, and asks her what’s wrong. The demonologist asks Monique how she knew what to do to escape the Harbinger and wake herself up, and Monique tells her it was an angel, a little boy who came to her and led her out.

If your demonologist makes this face, RUN

The demonologist looks panicked. She tells Monique that the Harbinger is everyone in her dreams. There is no one else there. Monique says this was different, and the demonologist reminds her that everyone and everything is a tool for the Harbinger, to get closer to her. Monique slams her laptop shut, not wanting to hear any of it. But it’s clear on her face that doubt has taken hold. I’m not ready to – she starts to say, when BAM! The Harbinger slams through her bedroom wall with violent force.

We cut to the brother and the father downstairs, who are both in a trance. At first, I was sure this meant they have both also been invaded by the Harbinger, but upon re-watch, I’m not so sure. They’re not asleep, they’re just frozen in place, so maybe that’s what happens to the uninfected while someone close to them is being taken? I’m still not sure. Either way, they stay stock still as the Harbinger drags Monique kicking and screaming down the stairs and out of the house. As soon as she’s gone, Lyle comes to while someone pounds on the front door. It’s a policewoman. Someone called in a report of some commotion in their house. But Lyle’s all alone there. Dad is in the hospital, and Lyle has no brothers or sisters. The officer asks if his dad is going to be OK, and Lyle says yes, he is, and that they are taking him off a ventilator and bringing him home the next day. The officer leaves, and Lyle looks around the room, confused.

Cut to the next day, when Lyle is helping his feeble father back into the house. They remove their masks and stand quietly in front of a window. It’s back to being cold and bleak outside. Lyle notices that Dad doesn’t seem happy to have survived, to be out of the hospital, and Dad says he could be happy if the world around him wasn’t so damaged and empty. Oh, if he only knew. Dad says a shadow is falling over them, and that he knows Lyle can feel it even if pretends he can’t. There are worse things coming, Dad says, and Lyle tells him he has to keep up hope. Dad asks why, and Lyle says that’s just what they do; they keep hoping. Dad isn’t convinced. He tells Lyle he’s going to bed. But as he walks towards the stairs, he sees something on the floor. He stops to pick it up. It’s a sketch of a sparrow, and it was clearly drawn by Monique. Dad looks up and around the room with a look of fear, sadness, and confusion on his face. His eyes are full of tears.

The end.

This is a heartbreaking film that’s scary in so many ways beyond supernatural jump scares and suspense, although there’s plenty of that as well. When the Harbinger slams through Monique’s wall after she hangs up on the demonologist, it’s a huge shock, even though we too have figured out that the Harbinger tricked her. I think it’s because she’s in the middle of making a statement (I’m not ready to…to what? To think about the possibility that she wasn’t saved? To die?) that the crash through the wall sent me through the roof. It’s a terrifying moment, but it’s well-executed and well-earned. This may be a tough movie to watch, especially at a time when the world’s collective trauma still has us running from all memories of that awful time – but it’s worth watching at least once for its sad, elegiac beauty.

Found Footage Faves: Bad Ben 10 & 11 – Eulogy and Undead

Posted on July 1, 2023 by marey mercy

What’s the horror: ghosts (in the form of Tom Riley), zombies

Does the dog die? Nope

Gore factor: Nah – our man BB doesn’t go that way

Re-watch scale: Eulogy is not one I will re-watch, but Undead has grown on me much like Haunted Highway did.

Here we are again – Nigel Bach is crankin’ these movies out more quickly it seems, for better or worse. Mostly it’s for the better, but along the way, there’s bound to be some duds. Eulogy isn’t Bach’s strongest entry, but it does serve a necessary purpose in bridging the death of Riley in the last episode to future episodes. After confirming Tom was killed at the end of Benign, Bach has to do something to open the Rileyverse back up for future films, and in that regard, Eulogy serves its purpose. Also, I think Eulogy was made towards the end of the pandemic, when working with others was still dicey, so that probably affected the end result as well. And kudos must go out to Bach for continuing to make films throughout the pandemic – nothing slows this dude down, it seems, and even when the world feels apocalyptic, there he is, doing what he does. It’s pretty comforting.

With Eulogy, we start in familiar territory – an investigative podcaster has gained access to new footage regarding Tom Riley’s current predicament and plans to create a documentary about the goings-on for his viewers. We saw this premise in Badder Ben, and it worked well, so I don’t have any problems with Bach mining familiar territory here. After viewing the usual “this is footage we found” opening text, and a quick catch-up/review for anyone who’s either new to the franchise or has forgotten what happened in the previous nine movies, our investigator for this outing, who identifies himself as Jackson Scott, promises to show us new information that will, of course, blow our minds. Let’s get to work!

First, Jackson reminds us that somewhere along the way, Bach started a paranormal investigation service called Boo Be Gone, because of course he did. Jackson gained access to hours of recordings related to BBG through a Freedom of Information Request, and the first clip he shows is one of Tom Riley himself (hey, Tom!) with a collection of BBG’s contacts, client files, and recordings that he’s hiding in his shed. He wants someone to know where his shit is, in case anything happens to him, which we know has come to pass.

Jackson’s standing in front of Tom’s shed as he tells us this, then he uses a crowbar to break into it. He finds the files, and just as he’s about to leave he hears that familiar Bad Ben screech – it’s honestly the weirdest sound ever – and in an old mirror hanging crookedly on a wall of the shed appears the message: He Rots in Hell. Wow, thanks mirror. Now we know what happened to Tom so we can all go home, I guess.

Just kidding. Jackson’s got a ton of material to review now, so we cut to his studio where he’s ready to record a new episode. He starts off by telling us he’s contacted the people in Tom’s files, and any time he encountered someone who was willing to talk to him he asked them “One simple question: did you know Tom Riley?” We then cut to Tom talking about what he thinks people will say about him when he’s dead. “I think people will say, yeah, I knew Tom Riley,” he says, which, way to shoot for the absolute minimum there, Tom.Then we cut to a collection of Tom’s clients all saying, unsurprisingly, “Yeah, I knew Tom Riley.” So far, so good, Tom. You’re predicting the future quite well.

But not for long, because soon Tom is being asked what else people will say about him, and he of course says people will probably say he’s a nice guy. Cut to the same group of people calling him an asshole, moron, and idiot. Heh. It was a pretty obvious setup, but it’s still funny.

This is as good a place as any to mention a key component of this BB installment – all of the clients Jackson interviews throughout the movie are fans of the franchise. Nigel Bach started offering cameos and mentions in his movies to fans who donate a few episodes ago, and with each subsequent film, the number of contributing fans increases. This movie approaches that funding much like Pandemic did, by primarily using these contributors as minor characters in a series of vignettes. It’s a trick that worked well once, but I’m not sure it’s good enough to be used a second time as it gets old rather quick here. Each scene from Tom’s video diary has a random picture in the background that’s clearly another contributor, and different fans create the video vignettes Jackson shares, all of which discuss their experiences with using Boo Be Gone and Tom Riley to rid their house of evil spirits.

As you can imagine, there’s a varying level of acting talent among these fans, so not understanding why they’re being used in the film at all might make the viewing experience baffling. And the random photos that keep showing up behind Tom can be distracting, as they’re clearly added digitally into a frame rather than being real photos. It’s an odd problem to solve; Bach needs financing to keep doing what he does, and he went through some financial difficulty with a shitty distributor who screwed him over which led to needing even more outside help, so I get why he solicits fan donations. Being totally independent is key to Bach’s movies; he does homemade cinema better than just about anyone, but that does mean a lot of crowdfunding, and he needs to keep upping the stakes, I guess, so fans continue to donate. It can weigh the films down, to be honest – BUT, again, the pandemic must be considered here also. Now that the world is back to business, Nigel Bach can find a way to make his contributors and his viewers happy, as well as appeal to new viewers; I’ve no doubt of that. If anyone can do it, he can. And his fans deserve to be featured, to be honest – they’re the ones who step up and keep him going when things get rough financially. Bach has managed to keep this train rolling since 2016, so I’m pretty confident he will iron out the kinks with each new installment.

But to make it work during COVID-19 time, this film is mostly just interviews – of different clients, and of Tom himself. Then we have Jackson occasionally popping in to stare into the camera and relay information, so overall, yeah – there’s a lot of scenes of people just talking into a camera in this one. The stories they all relay revolves around the idea that while Tom thinks he’s a kick-ass ghost hunter and has cleared the spaces of his clients to their satisfaction, his clients have quite a different perspective. Tom either failed to fix the problem, made the problem worse, or in some cases destroyed people’s property in the process. Some of the stories clients tell could have been their own movies, and in fact this kind of feels like a bunch of Bach’s ideas that never fleshed out into full-blown films.

One of the strangest things about this installment is how stiff Tom is in front of the camera for most of the runtime. He clearly had very specific things he wanted to say about each experience that he relays to the camera, and his interviews have the quality of being recited rather than spontaneously discussed with an interviewer. It’s unusual for Bach, who was definitely funnier and more spontaneous in Pandemic as he reacted to the situations people were sending him via video.

Things continue along in this vein until about the one-hour mark (!), when Jackson speaks to Tom directly via a psychic with a crystal ball. Sure enough, he is in Hell, and has taken to calling Satan Glenn just to piss him off. Heh. As soon as Tom Riley is back to wisecracking and done with reciting stories, the energy picks up tremendously, especially as we watch Jackson track down Tom’s lost grimoire (it was stolen by Bad Ben when he ticked Tom off and he threw it at the creature) and use it to bring Tom back to life. And back to life Tom is, about seven minutes before the end of the film. Unfortunately, almost as soon as Tom is brought back to life zombies come stumbling out of the woods, and Jackson and Tom take off. End of movie.

This leads us to Undead, taking place right where Eulogy stopped. Now that Nigel Bach is back to telling one cohesive story, Undead is all wise-cracking Tom, all the time. It starts out a little slow, as we get a fair amount of Jackson and Tom just running around trying to avoid the zombies and figure out what the hell is going on. This is all shot outside near Steelmanville Road, but not at the house, since at the end of Benign it was revealed to have a new owner. Bach, ever the master of the do-it-yourself horror film, does a good job compensating for the fact that there’s traffic driving up and down all the roads they travel as they try to get back to Jackson’s studio – “Are we the only ones who know what’s going on?” they keep asking themselves, which is a simple but clever move – I can’t tell you how many low budget horror films have neglected to acknowledge the normal daily traffic zooming around in what’s supposed to be the apocalypse. Nigel Bach can’t stop the traffic, but he will sure as hell quip about it. And quip he does. It’s all quite meta.

It takes about 20 minutes of wandering around outside and filming themselves talking about what might be going on before they make their way into Jackson’s studio, and Tom’s quips aside it’s a bit of a slow start. Still, there are some good bits in here, such as when Tom calls the cops and tries to tell them they’re being attacked by zombies, but they hang up on him. Jackson rightly points out that he shouldn’t be talking zombies with the police – just say we’re being chased by something else, he suggests, otherwise, they won’t take him seriously – so Tom calls the cops back and quips: “Hello police? We’ve got hummingbirds!” For some reason, this really cracks me up. They also find an abandoned campsite with a severed hand, and a note inside a backpack from the victim’s wife, telling whoever this poor dead dude is not to wear his earbuds too much and to have a good time. “Well, he’s not listening to his earbuds anymore,” Tom tells the camera, then looks at the severed hand. “Or his wedding ring, apparently.”

Things kick in soon enough, once the guys change clothes and pick up Jackson’s assistant, Mitch. They stumble into a zoo, of all places, and film different animals until a zombie pops up in one of the cages. It’s odd, but clearly, Bach got permission to film inside a zoo and was not going to pass that up. Either that, or they snuck into a zoo and were determined to shoot as much footage as they could while they were there. Either way, the zombie in the cage is a pretty good scare, as is the moment when several zombies are shuffling towards them and Tom says, “They’re slow-moving…that’s the good thing,” and a VERY fast-moving zombie bursts out from behind the shufflers to attack the camera. Heh.

They make it out of the zoo and walk right into a cemetery, where Tom gets the brilliant idea to dig up a body and try to “test” what’s up with the wandering undead situation. Jackson is, obviously, against this idea, and when Tom asks Mitch what he thinks, the face Jackson gives him to encourage him to back up his assessment that this is a bad idea is pretty funny:

Soon enough, another zombie attack sends them on their way without any graverobbing, and then they’re resting in the woods after giving it the slip while Mitch takes a shit in the woods. Hey, I’m just telling you what the movie says, don’t blame me. Anyway it’s here that we get our first big chunk of contributor shoutouts, in the form of social media comments that get posted as Jackson updates his podcast. They read the names first, then the comments, which are mostly insults aimed at Tom, although a few attack Jackson also. Once that’s out of the way, Mitch reappears and off they go again. I can’t help but notice that Mitch is wearing some seriously weird pants – are they cropped? Super long shorts? Capris? I cannot say.

Another zombie comes along, and Tom, true to form, is tired of running. He fights the zombie instead, and after he throws it to the ground Jackson puts a go-pro on its head. They send him on his way, content that they can track its progress in the hopes it leads them to some sort of clues. Tom is chafing and wishes he had baby powder. Heh. Mitch says he might know someone who can help them, and sends a text to his ex-girlfriend. She doesn’t text him back – instead, she poofs into the forest in a puff of smoke. Turns out it’s the witch from Haunted Highway who cut off a dude’s head then carried it into Tom’s Drop-U-Off ride. And what do you know – the headless dude was Mitch. He was into that sort of thing for a while, but he got over it. She doesn’t understand why he ghosted her, because she did reattach his head and everything. And she’s wearing the same style of baggy ankle pants as Mitch, so I feel like they’d make a cute couple. Anyway, the witch has some info for the group – she knows that all the zombies are “fresh kills,” in other words, people who died recently. It’s not much of a clue, but it’s something, and after she eliminates two zombies by throwing fireballs at them, she promises to get back to them with more information and poofs away.

We are now exactly halfway through the movie, and here comes the hard part. The guys find an abandoned laptop and sit down on some tree stumps to have a look. There’s a video file on it showing a burly man named Tony Ponzetti, who works at that cemetery, and he’s discovered some strange things going on with the dead bodies, and he’s going to talk about them. He proceeds to show a grave, then a photo of that same grave all dug up and empty. Then he tells the story about whose body was in the grave and how they died. Then he shows security footage of that body zombie-stomping through the cemetery late at night. Yep, you guessed it – this is Nigel Bach’s next contributor dump, and it’s LONG. The stories are funny, of course, and I’m sure if one of them were about me I’d love it. But I’m not one of them, and in spite of the humor and the clever device Bach has come up with here to include his donors, it slows the movie to a zombie-like crawl – especially since it goes on for 18 minutes. Still, a Wiccan who died while trying to sacrifice a black virgin goat and a woman who was killed by a street sweeper while she tried to retrieve a winning lottery ticket from a storm drain are amusing anecdotes; I just wish there had been more variety in the way these deaths were presented.

Finally, Tony concludes his video by saying that the people who’ve risen from the dead all died within the last 12 months, adding some specificity to what the witch told them earlier about the fresh kills. Before they have too much time to ponder this, a zombie sneaks up on them out of the woods and they scatter. Tom falls into the campfire, which leads to him having to don a borrowed pastel peach half-shirt from this point forward. Hehe. Tom explains that his body didn’t burn because he spent twelve months in hell so he can’t be burned. This triggers a thought for Jackson, who concludes that the spell he cast to bring Tom back to life in Eulogy must have brought every dead body that was twelve months old or less back to life as well.

The gang decides they’re hungry, so they walk back into town and find an abandoned restaurant. Inside, Tom finds some tarot cards, and tries to use them to get a clue about how they should proceed. But as soon as he lays out the cards, he starts talking in these strange tongues, that are basically just Tom’s voice slowed down while he speaks gibberish. It’s still pretty funny. As soon as he puts up the cards he can use his own voice again, and he relays that the cards sent him a message that he can’t trust someone around him. Both Jackson and Mitch swear that they’re trustworthy, and Tom seems to believe them. In another callback to Haunted Highway, the guys call Drop U Off to get a ride back to the house on Steelmanville Road, where they think the grimoire must be.

Once the guys are back at the house, we cut between footage of them looking for the grimoire in the dark, and scenes of the zombie with the go-pro on its head meeting up with other zombies as they wander through the woods. Eventually, Go Pro Zombie and all of his companions meet up with Mitch’s witch – the one who promised Tom she’d return with more information for him – and she tells them all it’s time to destroy Tom Riley. So she was the person he couldn’t trust.

As the zombies draw nearer, the three retreat to Tom’s shed to hide. Mitch mentions he needs to go #2 again, and Tom and Jackson complain about him trying to do so inside the shed. Mitch tells them it’s OK because he found an old book he’s going to use to wipe with, and of course it’s the grimoire. Hehe. The grimoire tells them that if they say the same spell Jackson cast to bring Tom back to life into the mirror, it will be reversed, stopping the zombies in their tracks. Unfortunately, it may kill Tom as well, but it’s a risk they have to take. Jackson reads the spell into the mirror, and all the zombies disappear. Suddenly, Tom groans and grabs his chest, falling to the ground. Jackson and Mitch are upset, but Tom soon pops up on his own, claiming he has a fainting goat disease. Heh.

They exit the shed and encounter the witch, who intends to kill Tom herself since he defeated her zombies. But Mitch offers to let her kill him instead if she will leave Tom alone, so she slashes off his head and disappears in a puff of smoke as Mitch’s headless body falls to the ground. Knowing that the last time the witch cut off Mitch’s head she eventually re-attached it, neither Jackson nor Tom are too concerned; in fact, they’re thrilled to have defeated the zombies and the witch on their own. “Is there anything I can’t conquer?” Tom boasts to Jackson. He’s faced everything at this point and always won, he says – well, except for aliens. And it’s at this point that a light shines down on them from above and zaps them into the sky. And just like that the next installment is up – Tom versus the aliens.

I have not had a chance yet to view Bad Ben: Alien Agenda, but when I do, you’ll most likely hear about it.

Heavy Rotation Horror: Suspiria (2018)

Posted on June 28, 2023 by marey mercy

Anyone who attempted to re-make a beloved horror classic like Dario Argento’s 1977 original was bound to catch shit for taking it on (while I like the original, it never left a big impression on me; I much prefer the second film in his Three Mothers trilogy, Inferno) but Luca Guadagnino just said fuck it and re-worked the entire concept, keeping the barest of the original’s structure (a new girl moves to Berlin to join a dance company secretly run by witches) and pretty much telling a completely different story from there. To be honest, there’s not even much use in comparing the two, as the setup of the original Suspiria serves as inspiration for Guadagnino’s film, but nothing more.

If you can get past making comparisons or if you aren’t overly committed to the original, I think Suspiria is a breathtaking, enthralling film. Not everything works (dividing the movie into “acts” as if we are watching a theatre or dance performance is overly pretentious, and weaving in the sub-plot of Dr. Klemperer and his Holocaust-based trauma, as well as the 1977 hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181 during the German Spring, weigh the film down unnecessarily) and many positive reviews mention how the movie baffles on first viewing but comes together after a second – which was my experience also. I was left feeling disappointed after the first watch, primarily by the third act, which came off as too much of a shift tonally, as well as awkward and unsatisfying. But there was so much going on in the first two acts that I loved that I was willing to give it a second try, where, sure enough, it all come together better – even though I still felt (and still feel) like the script bit off more than it needed to chew.

One of my main reasons for coming to love this film is how integral the element of dance is to the story. In the original, the ballet studio is a backdrop, a way to collect the witches together and get Susie, the protagonist, into the mix. In fact, that Susie is taken ill right away when she arrives, without performing much more than a few pirouettes before she gets hurried away to her room to recover. Not so 2018 Suspiria, where Susie Bannion (played by Dakota Johnson) performs an impressive audition and executes a stunning, impromptu lead performance that also serves to witchily punish a wayward company member in the movie’s most grisly, yet strangely gorgeous, body-horror scene before she needs to be carted away to recuperate. The movie has several extended dance sequences, including a full performance of the piece the company has been working on throughout the duration of the film, and a macabre performance during the gory, over-the-top climactic ritual. This is modern dance, powerful, primal, and purely female, as opposed to the traditional ballet of the original.

Femininity is central to this Suspiria. The dance company is entirely female, as is the staff who oversee the performances and living arrangements, which are dormitory-style. The only man with any presence in the story is Dr. Klemperer, who gets involved in the witchy dealings when one of his clients, a dancer for the company who has become convinced it’s run by witches who are trying to take over her body, disappears. But even Klemperer has a feminine twist up his tweedy sleeve – it’s actress Tilda Swinton in heavy disguise. Swinton is, as usual, rock-solid in this film in every form she takes. She plays Madame Blanc, the lead choreographer, artistic genius, and primary contact with the young dancers, as well Klemperer and, in the insane ritual scene, the diseased, grotesque Mother Markus, the company’s namesake. The first time I watched this, I knew something odd was up with Dr. Klemperer – he had the weirdest voice I’d ever heard – so I wasn’t totally surprised to find out Tilda played him. In fact, knowing it’s Tilda in male drag made me appreciate the character much more, because the director said he made that choice to keep the energy of the set entirely female, even with a male character in the mix.

But just because the environment is entirely female doesn’t mean it’s free from struggles for power and control. While the dancers who live there feel like family, and Susie is welcomed with surprisingly open arms by all of the girls as well as the staff, there’s something off about this place from the start. There’s the sudden overnight exit of Patricia, Dr. Klemperer’s patient, whose room Susie will be taking; the nightmares Susie has each night, as well as the admission from the other dancers that they too had terrible dreams when first joining the company; and there’s the outburst from Patricia’s friend, Olga, who basically calls the dance instructors witches to their faces.

Patricia. Don’t get too attached to her.

There’s also the odd bond Susie has with Madame Blanc, who is not the founder of the dance studio but appears to be its heart. While it seems clear Blanc sees herself in Susie – who manages to gain acceptance to the company when they are not holding auditions, and who manages to take over Patricia’s lead role in the piece the company is rehearsing when no other girl is able to do it – she also appears pained by Susie’s rapid ascendence to principal dancer in a way that suggests something darker is afoot here.

What that something is seems evident from the start – before she disappeared, Patricia confided to Dr. Klemperer that the dance company had something more nefarious going on underneath the surface, that she believed Mother Markos was trying to get inside of her. Patricia’s name comes up regularly among the women who run the company, with intimations that some ritual they included her in went awry, and it’s not a stretch to conclude that the ritual they discuss is, in fact, one that will project Mother Markos – the founder of the dance company – into another body, just as Patricia feared. It’s also not a stretch to conclude that Susie’s incredible instinct as a dancer as well as her innate ability to conjure up some seriously dark magic – although the extent to which Susie is aware of how the movements of her body are used by the coven to exact harsh punishment on Patricia’s friend Olga remains unclear- makes her the ideal candidate.

One of the elements that is interesting to watch during the film’s long runtime is the role-switching Madame Blanc and Susie engage in throughout. At times, Susie is, as one would expect, the ingenue who needs the guidance of Blanc’s fierce creativity and drive; while at others, Blanc wavers in her resolve to do as has been dictated by the coven, based on her affection for Susie; at such times Susie is the one whose confidence and surety reassure the Madame that everything is going to be all right. Of course, the audience knows, or thinks it knows, that Susie keeps saying this out of ignorance; surely she has no idea what the company really has in store for her, and is merely comforting Madame Blanc over what she thinks is the choreographer’s uncertainty about her ability to meet the demands of a principal dancer in what is undeniably a difficult piece.

And yet…there’s something unnerving about Susie’s calm, quietly assured manner throughout her time with the dance company. Through flashbacks and a conversation with Blanc, we learn that she ran away from her Mennonite family in Ohio, where she was homeschooled by a mother who despised her and considered her to be something more than a disobedient child; on her deathbed (she has slowly been dying of cancer throughout the course of the film) she refers to Susie as “my sin I smeared on the world.” We get no further information about that, but the mother motif connects Susie’s mother to Mother Markos of the dance company. While Markos refers to herself as Mother Suspiriorum (the Mother of Sighs), both Markos and Susie’s mother can be heard at different moments breathing heavily, as if sighing in pain and anguish – Markos’s pain at having to live in an ancient, diseased body, and Susie’s mother’s pain enduring the end of her relatively young life in a body riddled by cancer. There’s more sighing afoot throughout the film – when the dance company performs, the girls all breathe and sigh heavily, almost in unison, and Susie’s breathing is dominant in her audition, which seems to draw Madame Blanc from the rehearsal room into the tiny studio where Susie is performing.

There are other sounds that recur as audible motifs throughout the film: the haunting sound of the music composition rewinding in the studio echoes the sound of Dr. Klemperer’s recordings of Patricia’s therapy sessions being rewound. The dancers, as well as the staff, often burst into laughter at the oddest moments, and for no apparent reason – when Olga calls the women who run the company witches, several of the women burst out laughing; gaggles of girls whisper and giggle together in corners, and there are several times throughout the film where one character or another simply bursts into laughter as they leave a room, again, for no apparent reason we can ascertain. I’ve given this element of the film a lot of thought over the years, and I think I finally came up with an explanation for it that I’m satisfied with: I think this constant giggling and whispering on the part of the young girls and the older women represents the mystical, unique bond they share as a functioning unit. Most of the time, this laughter comes off as if the amused are sharing a secret, one we are never privy to but that seems to be held by everyone in the company. Susie, however, seems removed from this gossipy giggling – not engaging with it, but not bothered by it either. From the moment she arrives at the company, Susie manages to both fit in and stay distant at the same time.

Much like Madame Blanc, who has challenged Mother Markos for control of the company, and is therefore at a remove from the other staff. Early on in the movie, we witness a vote being taken, although it is done entirely through telepathy, with the women moving about the building’s kitchen, preparing breakfast for their morning meal while their voices call out for either Markos or Blanc. It’s Markos who wins, which means another dancer’s body must be prepared for her to use as her own; it’s unclear how long she’s been existing in her current one, but when she appears in the movie’s climactic scene it’s clear there’s nothing left of it but tumors and rot. Madame Blanc rightly points out that if Markos really was who she claims to be – one of the Three Mothers, ancient witches who rule different parts of the globe – there would be no need to keep channeling her spirit into different dancers, but once the tally is taken, Blanc is forced to go along. As much as she dislikes the idea, she must choose another dancer for Mother Markos to use.

It’s this tension that propels the film forward as the company rehearses for their final performance of Blanc’s celebrated piece “Volk” (“folk”). We know that by volunteering herself to dance Patricia’s lead, Susie has unwittingly offered herself up as some sort of sacrifice for Mother Markos; we also know that Madame Blanc is increasingly unhappy about this but is either unable or unwilling to stop it from happening. In one scene near the climax of the film, Blanc visits Susie in her room at night, communicating with her telepathically that she wants to explain to Susie what she’s gotten herself into, but feels that she can’t – we can assume that is because of her loyalty to the coven, but it’s also clear that Blanc is out of her element with the whole situation; she knows what’s happening feels wrong, but the idea that it’s simply because she cares for Susie doesn’t quite explain her unease. It’s another situation where Susie takes on the mothering role, reassuring Blanc that everything is fine and there’s no need to worry. But does Susie really know what the company has in store for her? She never says anything to indicate that she does; she just exudes this confident certainty that reveals her willingness to accept whatever fate awaits her. She is truly Not Bothered.

There are other characters here who factor greatly into the overall story; Mia Goth plays Sarah, the dancer who befriends Susie the day she arrives at the company. Sarah was also good friends with Patricia, and her worry over her disappearance propels her into the heart of the darkness that lies beneath the dance troupe’s surface. She tries to track Patricia down at the same time Dr. Klemperer, Patricia’s therapist, is also trying to find her; once the two meet and compare notes Patricia’s disappearance becomes more ominous. Sarah takes to sneaking around the building at night, looking for clues, which leads her to the home of the coven hidden underground, beneath the studio. She has to sneak away quickly in order to remain undetected, but Sarah sees enough to convince herself that Olga wasn’t playing when she called Madame Blanc and the others witches.

So Sarah becomes the second person to be concerned about Susie’s position in the company. She begins to connect Patricia’s experiences as the principal dancer to Susie’s – the way Blanc seemed to groom her for something beyond a dance performance, the way Patricia’s dancing seemed to improve magically and exponentially once Blanc’s attention shone down on her, and of course, the way Patricia, in the end, disappeared without a trace. She fears the same for Susie, but when approached Susie replies with the same sense of calm and confidence that she shows Madame Blanc. She’s not worried about anything, and she knows it’s all going to be fine. Sarah disagrees.

As it turns out, “Volk,” the dance the troupe has been rehearsing, is much more than a complex and beautiful performance piece. It’s a ritual that will cast Susie’s soul out of her body and replace it with that of Mother Markos, who is literally rotting under the floorboards of the studio. All Susie has to do is lead the troupe through the moves as choreographed, and Mama Markos is good to go. But Susie has other ideas. She argues against some of Blanc’s moves, arguing that she should stay grounded, closer to the floor instead of leaping into the air as early on in the performance as Blanc has staged it. Won’t it make the leaps more effective if they come later in the piece? she asks, leading Blanc to criticize her lack of understanding about the conditions under which the piece was originally created. It was written at a time when Germany wanted women to submit to their men, shut their mouths, create good German babies, and support the war. Leaving the earthly plane of an oppressive reality and leaping into the ether was a necessity back then, for women, to survive. We need to get you into the air, Blanc says, but Susie’s not convinced. The war is over, and the company is living in the past. Susie’s pushback against Blanc’s signature piece reveals another division within the company: those who are still stuck in the past, and those who want to move forward. Susie doesn’t feel the need to escape from the world or leap into some other, ethereal realm; she wants to stay grounded in the world as is.

Blanc, of course, also represents this division as the person who challenges Markos’s authority, as are those who vote for her over the decrepit MM (which is its own representation of a past that has hung around too long). But the strength of these women – or witches, let’s just say it – falters as soon as their challenge is defeated. They’re too loyal, too connected to the history of the coven to break free of it and forge a new direction. There are hints of it, such as when Blanc starts choreographing a new piece for the company, but even then, she allows Susie to improvise her part rather than directing her movements. It’s possible the company cannot move forward without Susie, that Blanc needs her to help guide them in a new direction, but as the audience knows, the presence of Markos makes this impossible. As long as she is in the picture, Susie’s doomed, and the company appears destined to stay stuck in the past.

Mama Markos. There’s no doubt Susie’s body would be an improvement.

Cut to the day of the “Volk” performance. Susie preps with a seriousness and calm which indicates she knows something’s at stake, but how much she knows is still a mystery. It’s hard to believe she would actually be okay with having her soul cast out of her body, but it’s clear her instincts are elsewhere, and she’s too opaque to decipher at this point. Unfortunately, Sarah has decided to take advantage of the company’s distraction with the show to go back into the depths of the building and try to find Patricia, whom she is convinced is being held captive somewhere down below. When it’s time for the show to go on, Sarah is nowhere to be found – something Susie definitely makes note of – but go on the show must, and the dancers take the stage without her.

Sarah probably would have been better off sticking with the performance, though – she finds Patricia all right, but she’s zombified in some state of undead, suspended animation. She tells Sarah that Mama Markos visits her every night, feeding off of her energy (and quite possibly her body; it’s unclear), and soon other bodies in various states of decomposition and mutilation start to crawl out of the shadows, calling Sarah’s name, begging for help. It’s pretty awful.

Sarah really struggled at first to believe that such a warm, loving place that has always felt like family to her could really be this horrid under the surface. It’s a struggle I experience when watching the movie, too. There’s no doubt that Blanc is a loving presence who cares for the girls (to a point, at least) and that the dancers themselves are a tight unit. The way they welcome Susie with open arms reinforces the impression of the company as a safe, supportive space for women, just as one of the matrons tells Susie once she’s accepted. It’s this warmth and welcoming that makes what’s later revealed feel like such a deep, disappointing betrayal; on the surface, this appears to be the perfect nurturing environment for these talented young women, and many of the matrons themselves are conflicted by their desire to provide that for them, but they’re unwilling to challenge the power structure that has protected them for so long, and ultimately they all choose their own security over that of the girls in their charge. It’s…the wrong decision.

Take Sarah, for example. She is kind, and caring, and she loves the dance company like her own family. But her foray into the bowels of the building crosses a line, and she must be punished. It’s significant that Blanc is the one to mete out the punishment here – as Markos’s former challenger, she’s the one most likely to protect Sarah over the coven’s secrets. But she does not. Even Blanc bows to the perceived power of old MM in the end, and she orchestrates the same sort of grisly fate for Sarah that the other undead bodies in the basement have endured. So long, Sarah. We barely knew ya.

But not before they send her zombified body back to the dance floor to complete the ritual. Every dancer must be present and perform their part if the ritual is going to work, and once Sarah returns it’s Susie’s turn to recognize that something is not right. What she knows is unclear – but everyone can see that Sarah’s not okay. Susie throws the performance off by improvising instead of sticking to the steps, which breaks the spell, and Sarah suddenly falls to the floor, screaming in pain. The matrons rush forward to carry her off (So long, Sarah. We barely knew ya) and bring up the lights. Ritual interrupted. Performance over.

Blanc tries to chastise Susie for breaking the spell, but what she really wants to do is prepare her for what’s coming. She wants to tell her everything, but she feels like it would be wrong. Susie comforts her, tells her she knows Blanc loves her, but the conversation ends on an ominous note: Why is everyone so quick to assume that the worst is over? Susie posits to Mme Blanc. It’s unclear who she’s talking about, unclear which one of them is making this incorrect assumption, but Susie’s not yet confident enough to express her own thoughts without looking to Blanc for validation. It’s all a mess, isn’t it? she asks Blanc. The world out there, the world in here. She’s right, of course, but Blanc is unwilling to spill the dancing beans. The most she can do is ensure Susie a night of sleep unbroken by disturbing dreams.

I’m not getting into the dreams here. Maybe I’ll do it in another post.

So OK, things are about to go off the rails, and keep in mind there’s a lot I’m not digging into here. I’ve barely mentioned the plight of Dr. Klemperer – and honestly did anybody miss him? – but he’s been searching for Patricia ever since her disappearance, to the point of contacting the police. The witches know he’s the one who’s tipped off the cops, and even though they pose no threat as the matrons simply cast a spell on them and send them away, they decide to up the stakes of the next ritual by including “a witness.” They have an idea that this will help seal the deal and make for a smooth transition from Markos to Susie – as if punishing the outside world for intruding will help. It won’t.

Turns out the girls are going to have to perform “Volk” again, and soon, because Mama M can’t wait much longer for a new body. The old one is looking ROUGH, y’all. So, the witches enchant the dancers at night, bringing them into the secret chambers of their coven where they will perform again while under their spell. The lack of a costume isn’t the only thing different about this performance; it’s decidedly more wild and animalistic in nature, and it indicates the level of desperation Markos has sunk to at this point. She needs this shit to go down, pronto.

One dancer has not been summoned though: Susie is still upstairs in her room. She dresses for the ceremony with intention and makes her way down the stairs into the chamber on her own – again, it’s as if she knows what’s coming, and she’s okay with it. Once she enters the chamber, though, the color palette of the film makes an immediate shift: everything, and everyone, is now bathed in a deep red the color of blood, and it will stay that way for the duration of the ceremony. I think it’s a nod to the garish colors of the original since elsewhere the film remains awash in muted, earthy tones.

Blanc is there, also swathed in red, and Mama Markos looks like the world’s biggest molehill with eyes. Blanc stops Susie as she enters the room, and implores Markos to wait. Something’s wrong, she says to MM, can’t you feel it? But at this point, Markos can’t feel anything except her own bones disintegrating, because faster than you can say “Volk” she’s hit Blanc with some kind of magic that almost decapitates her. Blood spurts everywhere. Consider that a preview, because something’s going on with Susie while Blanc’s being relieved of her head.

She’s standing at the top of the stairs, breathing heavily but peacefully. Actually, she’s not just breathing – she’s sighing. Slowly, in an extended moment of utter weirdness, she reaches down and digs into her own chest, prying it open to reveal – a mouth? A vagina? It’s unclear to me what it is, but it ain’t normal, and it seems clear that Susie is the real Mother of Sighs reborn, which portends dark things for the fake Mama who’s sitting in the corner. Sure enough, a literal manifestation of death emerges from some even deeper space within the chamber, like some grisly familiar of Susie’s, and proceeds to blow the heads off every matron who supported Markos instead of Blanc. Unfortunately, Blanc’s head is hanging on like the tip of a Pez dispenser at this point, so she’s far from spared.

According to the credits, the woman who played Susie’s Mennonite mother also plays Death here, which seems significant but I’m not gonna get into it because I’ve already gone on way too long.

Still bathed in red light, along with a LOT of blood, Susie makes her way down into the chamber where all the enchanted girls are still dancing feverishly. Sarah, Patricia, and the other sacrificed girls have been brought into the room, and Susie approaches each one, asking them what they want from her. One by one they all ask to die, which, I get it, but since she’s asking, why not ask to be brought back to life with an undamaged body? I guess that’s not an option, and Susie asking them what they want is just a formality. She takes particular care with Sarah, embracing her gently as she releases her to death. Susie then instructs the rest of the girls to keep dancing, as she finds them beautiful. It would appear that, as Mother Suspiriorum, Susie may just be a different kind of witch.

Mme Blanc. Don’t get too attached to her.

With the phony Mother disposed of, as well as her supporters, there’s not much more for Susie/MotherSuspiriorum to do but clean up – literally and figuratively. She leaves the actual cleanup of the disastrously bloody chamber to the matrons who were spared – Susie may have allowed them to live, but she hasn’t completely forgiven them their transgressions, either. After all, they all played a part in the deaths of Patricia, Olga, and Sarah, as well as who even knows how many others, so they’re not out of the cauldron yet. In fact, as they clean up the muck, one of them discovers that Mme Blanc, while almost completely decapitated, is still alive – just like the other dancers were after rituals that went awry. I guess it’s Blanc’s turn to rot away in the basement in a state of mutilation, while Susie does what with her, exactly? Who knows. It would seem she’s kept her in this state for a reason, but it’s also possible it’s some punishment exacted on her by Markos’s magic that can’t be undone.

The dancers, for their part, have no recollection of what happened the night before, so imagine their shock when they are told that Mme Blanc has left the company. One of the surviving matrons tells them this, not Susie, and it’s unclear how the troupe will function moving forward. There’s no doubt that losing Blanc is a huge loss, as she was the heart of the company, but we’ve already heard Susie say she wants to be the company’s hands, so my guess is she will guide them well. And as we’ve already seen, there’s a good chance she won’t be making the same mistakes – indeed, since she is the real Mother of Sighs, there will be no need for more dancer sacrifice. So alls well that ends well, I guess.

There’s also Klemperer to deal with – the psychiatrist who was forced to be a “witness” to all that madness in the blood-red chamber. He’s had one hell of a shock as you can imagine, so the final scene shows Susie, now fully grown into her role as Mother, visiting him at his home. She apologizes for what he was forced to watch – she was not yet in a position to control what happened in the coven, and she could not prevent it. As a sort of backhanded gift to him, she waves her hand over his eyes and erases not just all memory of that horrible night, but his memory of all the women he’s ever known, including his long-dead wife whose disappearance during the war he still mourns. We need guilt, doctor, she tells him, and shame. But not yours. Susie’s right about the dance company – a little guilt and shame would have prevented the coven from sacrificing their dancers and being misled by a phony Mother, lessons it appears Susie has learned and intends to correct. But the company is still an insular world by necessity, so Klemperer’s memories of it have got to go. And while she’s at it, Susie removes his memories of his lost wife too – dude’s been through a lot between losing his wife, searching for Patricia, and then watching a witchy ritual gone bloodily awry, so Susie clears the slate and moves on. Like everything else, there are two sides to this action – sure, he no longer will suffer painful memories from his past, but he won’t recall the good ones, either. There’s always a price, after all, and Susie will still have to make hard choices to keep the coven alive, but as long as she stays grounded (as she wanted to do with “Volk”) there’s hope that she can lead without causing too much damage.

But wait – as if there wasn’t enough packed into the movie’s three-hour runtime, we get a post-credits snippet showing Susie outside, in the bitter cold of a dark night. All we see is a tight shot of her face as she reaches out with one hand to do – something we don’t see. She reveals the slightest hint of a sly smile, before glancing to her right, looking back at whatever she’s just touched again, and then walking away. There’s no clear explanation out there as to what this means, but I like to think it’s Susie locking the doors of the dance company building one final time. With Blanc gone, and Susie’s desire to move the company forward, it would make sense for them to move elsewhere and start afresh. That may be more hopeful than other interpretations, but personally I like to think that the superficial warmth and kindness of the coven’s previous existence could be manifested in a more honest and real way. It also hints at sequels, something the director discussed when the film came out, but not having heard anything about that since 2018 doesn’t bode well, so for now my interpretation will have to do. Or come up with your own – after all, I’m not your Mother.

So long, Susie – the Mother we never had.

Found Footage Flail: Real Cases of Shadow People, The Sarah McCormick Story

Posted on April 15, 2023 by marey mercy

What’s the horror: shadow people, or ghosts, that hang around in dark corners and scare people silly while stalking them

Does the dog die? No animal cruelty

Gore factor: None

Re-watch scale: Only when I want to torment myself, or someone else

Honestly, reading this fake news report is way more exciting than watching the movie

I don’t normally write analyses of movies that I dislike, but this one is SO SPECTACULARLY BAD it deserves some mudslinging. I normally appreciate even the worst found footage for the effort involved, but this one is so bad it’s downright offensive, and there isn’t one redeeming character in the mix. It is INSANELY awful. Let’s dig in.

Things start off normally enough – we get a few talking heads of people who’ve seen and suffered with the shadow people phenomenon, then cut to a TV news report about the disappearance of three student filmmakers, one of whom is Sarah McCormick. Why the case is consistently called the “McCormick case” when there are also two missing young men is a bit of a mystery, and until we realize this is without a doubt the most entertaining section of the film we might have questions about this. Trust me, it’s not worth discussing as there’s absolutely no reason for this film to exist at all, so who cares about the details. Moving on.

Once the media reporting section is done, we cut right to the report that footage has been found that might help with the case. Then we cut to a “memory card #1” title, and right to the footage in question. And here, friends, is the opening line of the film, which I think sums up the entire movie nicely:

In true form, the individuals involved in filming this documentary start off right away by filming everything that happens as if it would ever be used in a real doc. It wouldn’t. Do we care that Sarah has packed a lot of stuff in her bag? No, we do not. Do we care that Sarah appears to have prepared for being an interviewer not at all? Well yeah, actually we do, and it’s not encouraging to watch her struggle to simply tell who she is and what she and her “crew” (and it’s not encouraging that the videographer of this crew doesn’t know what frame rate to shoot in, and Sarah has no idea what a frame rate even is, and that we’ve already heard 75 fucks and shits when we’re only four minutes and eleven seconds into this ordeal – cursing is the fallback position of any FF film that doesn’t know what else to do with itself, and we’ve already arrived at that milestone) are heading out to shoot. Sarah never does manage to cough and stutter out that they’re going to interview some individuals who claim to be haunted by shadow people, and they end up deciding that it might behoove her to write down what she’s going to say in advance (ya think, movie? YA THINK?).

Strap in folks. This is as good as the dialogue gets.

A few more shots of people cursing and putting bags into a trunk, and we’re off to what will turn out to be the MAJOR SET PIECE of this movie – the car. Folks, approximately 90% of the movie takes place in this vehicle, and at no time does anyone in said car discuss shadow people. No one in this car is haunted by shadow people – at least, not that we know of. No one in this car, at any time, sees a shadow person – at least, not that we get to see. Instead, we get endless stretches of time where these three sing, burp, fart, and convince themselves they’re amusing when mugging for the camera.

We’re six minutes in, people. SIX MINUTES IN.

Once when I was in college, I went with a group of friends to a big old cattle ranch that was owned by the grandfather of one of us, I forget who, I just know it wasn’t me. This was in the nineties, and I brought a huge-ass camcorder with me to record the event for posterity. Did we mug shamelessly for the camera while pretending that was how we acted all the time? Yes, we did. Did we laugh hysterically at every joke told on camera, no matter how dumb it was? Of course we did. Did we record hours upon hours of ourselves walking through forests or riding in trucks, commenting on the cows, the lakes, the grass all around us? Yep. Did we tell tons of private jokes that made no sense to anyone else? You betchya. And did we force others to watch this drivel when we got back home, simply because WE had such a fun time acting like fools that we were convinced anyone who watched that crap would be equally amused? Heck yes we did. The difference is, we didn’t turn that shit into a movie. And these people DID. This is every single person with a camera who ever thought they were so super-entertaining in life that they didn’t need to do anything except turn the fucker on and the world would be amused.

You know what no one has ever said about Real Cases of Shadow People: The Sarah McCormick Story? This.

Sarah doesn’t know how to use her iPhone’s GPS. Hilarious. The driver – I still don’t know his name – explains to Sarah what B-roll is. Hey, guess what B-roll is, Sarah? It’s this movie. Driver makes a joke about being psychologically scarred by the death of his mother. Heh. Little kids losing their parents. Hilarious. It’s not even true, as it turns out – but I would totally believe that the parents of all three of these dipshits went out for milk and cigarettes one day and never came back. Who could blame them? I say let the shadow people have these three.

You know what’s really funny? Beans. And people who eat beans.

You might be forgiven at this point for assuming all this nonsense is just character building, showing the dynamic between the characters before the action kicks in. I assumed that the first time I saw this also, so I wasn’t super-annoyed yet. I mean, we’re only nine minutes in, so spending some time getting to know these people and how they interact with each other isn’t an unexpected development. But we’ve already been made painfully aware that these three aren’t anywhere near as funny as they think they are. And at nine minutes in, we may already be hoping none of them survive, but still. The true horror of this film is not yet evident. And shortly after they film themselves eating beans and corn (with great difficulty, I might add) we get a scene or two that actually tricks us into thinking there is going to be a real movie here, and it’s about to get started.

But first, we have to film Sarah peeing along the side of the road for some reason, when they are clearly in a populated area with an abundance of bathrooms. We listen to Sarah as she sputters out the story of the first person they’re going to interview – y’all! They’re going to do something! – with a man whose daughter disappeared months ago, a man who claims to have seen shadow people right before the disappearance. Okay, this might get good.

But first, we have to film the driver peeing on the side of the road. And Sarah tells us she peed on her sandal. Then the driver says he stepped in Sarah’s pee. Sarah wonders what will happen if an animal comes along and smells her pee. Oh, I say we wait for that to happen, movie. I’d totally watch that.

Oh hey, the driver’s name is Joe.Thanks, movie. This may be the first useful piece of dialogue we’ve gotten so far.

Dude in the back seat wants to sell something he calls “nut art,” because he thinks his ejaculate comes out in pretty cool designs. He’d like to ejaculate onto canvas and sell that shit. Of course he would. And if you’re wondering why I’m subjecting you to this stupid dialogue, well reader, I had to sit through it, twice I might add – so you get to sit through it too. The backseat nut artist makes an incest joke. Classy.

Oh sure, leave the talking to the gal with pee on her sandals.

They’re out of the car! Hooray! It looks like there is going to be an actual interview of an actual person who has something to talk about other than human excretions. But not only did Sarah NOT change shoes, she’s totally dressed for a day at the beach here, which annoys the shit out of me. I mean, can you put on a blouse with a button or something? Would it be so hard to make yourself look somewhat professional for this important interview? Although, interestingly enough, Sarah does a pretty good of convincing the man, who has decided he doesn’t want to talk to them, to let them in for a quick couple of questions. She actually sounds sympathetic to his situation here, and her voice is – dare I say it – calming. This just serves to frustrate me more, since it appears Sarah could have been a much more compelling character, had she anything to do besides laugh at fart jokes. Oh well – this is about all that actually happens in this movie, so let’s pay attention.

Credit where credit is due, Sarah does a good job with this interview. She shows genuine empathy for the father’s plight and appears to be a good listener. She simply lets him tell his story, asking guiding questions as necessary. And his story is compelling, leading me to wonder why the movie had a good idea like this and then whiffed it so completely. Because the story he tells is one I would totally watch. He’d started seeing shadow people right after the birth of his daughter. They were usually around or in her room. They were always in shadow, but they were darker than shadows, more like an absence of all light, and they could still be seen in darkness. He’d turn the light on, however, and they would disappear. Later on, her daughter started talking about seeing these shadow people also, but Dad always pretended that he wasn’t seeing them even though he was – he wanted his daughter to feel safe and protected, and since he had no way to stop these shadow people from lurking about, he didn’t want his daughter to believe they were real. Then one night she came into her parent’s bedroom in the middle of the night, saying she woke up to a bunch of shadow people holding her down in her bed and telling her to go back to sleep and never wake up. They tried to comfort her, she went back to bed, and was gone in the morning. Again, why didn’t we get to see this movie? So much more interesting.

The movie tells us via title card that we’re now on Memory Card #2 and I don’t know why it’s bothering because we then cut to the trio in the car. Again. Sarah does a decent job telling the camera that they are going to interview a woman whose husband disappeared years ago, and again I wonder how much more likeable Sarah would have been if she’d never hooked up with these bozos. But now I understand why the only person the cops ever looked for was Sarah. I mean honestly, would you worry about the disappearance of a guy who thinks this is decent casual conversation?

Interview #2 is up – the subject this time is Mae Montgomery, who, as Sarah already mentioned, lost her husband years ago when he just up and disappeared. She seems nervous, but much more welcoming and forthcoming than the previous subject, and she appears to really want to tell her story. Sarah is, once again, a good interviewer, asking questions in a gentle voice and expressing sympathy in appropriate places. Oh Sarah, how I wish you had better friends. Mae has some interesting things to say about the shadow people, how they compel people to look at them by feeding off their energy and then refusing to allow them to avert their eyes. It’s an interesting discussion, but it’s also clear the director told the actress to play this all kooky like the woman is some nutjob (not to be confused with nut art, let’s be clear). Which is a shame, because it cheapens all of the interesting things she says. She sees the shadow people as extensions of human beings, their “shadow side” so to speak. She has advice to give, having dealt with seeing them for so long – try not to fear them, as they will feed on it. Remember that if you are seeing a shadow person, they want something from you. And although most of them are evil, there are shadow people that are kind. Then her lamps start flickering, and the trio starts hearing weird labored breathing sounds, although Mae insists she doesn’t hear anything (it’s clear she’s lying because she’s lonely, and doesn’t want the trio to leave), and Sarah flips the fuck OUT.

See that lamp behind Mae? Yeah, it flickered.

I know that a big frustration with horror movies is how dumb the characters are, how instead of doing the logical thing and getting the hell OUT of any situation where lights flicker and growling sounds are heard they stick around out of curiosity. Well folks, Sarah is EXACTLY that person we all claim we’d like to see in a horror film, because she shuts it down and practically sprints out of poor Mae’s house. And guess what – it may be the logical reaction, but it’s boring as hell on film. How could someone so fascinated with shadow people just bolt when there’s evidence occurring right in front of her, while cameras are rolling? This should be exactly what Sarah wants to capture. She should have taken Mae up on her offer to stay and moved the fuck IN. Set up cameras all around the house and waited for the magic to happen. I mean, come ON, Sarah, we all know how this works. But no, Sarah does the smart thing and leaves, and we are terribly disappointed. Because now, we’re back to this:

At least Kyle – oh hey, backseat guy has a name now! – is saying something I can actually agree with.

Yep, we’re back in the car. Sarah is dashing my hopes for her to ever become an investigative reporter when she shows ZERO interest in investigating the very thing she’s supposed to be investigating. You know it’s bad when Backseat Kyle takes a more logical approach to anything than you do.

Oh look, it’s memory card #3, and we’re – in the car again. But this time it’s raining. They’re listening to some random song that must be someone’s cousin’s band because we hear way too much of it, and without dick jokes no less. Then the camera dips into this weird slow motion mode for no reason whatsoever, and then we’re in Georgia and a clock is chiming. And hey look – they’re out of the car! And they’re walking! Backseat Kyle is filming, Sarah is carrying a backpack, and Sloppy Beans has a bug on him. They want to smoke, but no one brought a lighter. They borrow one from a passerby. Sarah is on camera again, explaining that they are going to interview another woman whose daughter disappeared. She is not wearing anywhere near as much makeup as she has been so far, and she looks so much better. Thick blue eyeliner does not a good smoky eye make, Sarah. Keep that in mind for future reference. Oh wait, you don’t have a future because you’re missing.

Backseat Kyle raves about her “fucking fantastic” performance, which is high praise for someone who simply managed to explain what they were about to do without, I don’t know, squirting? Based on their previous conversation on the subject, I take it that the boys don’t like it. And I hate it that I know this. Then we take some time to walk around downtown somewhere in Georgia, because why the hell not? You in a hurry or something? It looks very quaint, wherever it is. Old stone streets that the trio struggles to master. “It’s like hiking,” says Sloppy Beans, and no, it is not. It’s like walking on a stone street, and nothing else. There are bugs, and it is hot. And then…

We’re back in the car! Someone found a cheeto that looked like Harambe the gorilla and sold it for $100,000. And it’s hot. Sarah, for no explainable reason, is tired. She wants a nap. Seriously, why? You have done two interviews over the course of I don’t know how many days they’ve been driving now because it HAS to be more than one by now. How could you possibly need a nap, Sarah? Did all that running away from a good story that might have given you actually decent footage tucker you out?

We’re then treated to a time-lapse of the trio pitching a tent, yep, a TENT because apparently we’re going to camp now. Why? This adds nothing to the story of shadow people, but we do get to see Sarah in a bikini which I suspect is the real motive here. She looks good, and we’re treated to audio of Sarah explaining why this documentary means so much to her while she wanders around on the beach. It seems she’s had similar experiences, and that’s why this movie is SO important to her. So important that you bolted at the first evidence of shadow people you caught on film, important like that, Sarah? I can’t help but think this backstory would have been much more effective had we actually watched Sarah talking, but hey, bikini.

We watch Sloppy Beans and Backseat Kyle mug for the camera, and you gotta give it to these two for consistently coming up with unique ways not to be funny. It gets dark. The sunset is impressive. Sloppy Beans plans to imitate an Australian wilderness dude for the entire night. There’s a fire. And a raccoon? It’s hard to tell, because it’s dark. Sarah thinks they got some good footage. Whatever you say, Sarah. I want to like you but you make it hard sometimes. A plane flies overhead. Sloppy Beans entertains himself by repeating the word “Albequerque” over and over again in an Australian accent.

Yes, we’re still doing this. Just wait until he farts in the tent.

Now we’re in the tent, and you guessed it – the conversation is all about farts. Who farted, how they farted, what the fart smells like. Then they discuss each other’s stinky feet. Then Backseat Kyle shushes the other two and says, wait wait wait, did you hear that? And they all fall silent. And just when you think the movie’s gonna go all Blair Witch on you, Kyle farts loudly into the silence. Hilarious. Hey, wanna know what girl farts sound like? Because this movie wants to tell you. And tell you. And tell you.

It’s morning now. Everyone gets up, ready for another busy day of ~~interviewing people who’ve seen shadow folks~~ hanging out on the beach. Backseat Kyle zooms in on Sarah’s rack. It’s pretty good, not gonna lie. Oh Sarah, your rack deserves to get attention from far more decent men than these two. Oh wait – now we’re back in the car again. They’re going to see a Ms. Phillips, whose daughter disappeared quite recently. Turn right here, Sarah tells Sloppy Beans, who promptly turns left. Heh.

The trio gets to the Phillips house, and the aforementioned Ms. beckons them inside. As soon as she points out her little dog and is sure to tell them all that it doesn’t bite and is super-friendly, we are certain that said dog is going to make a meal out of Sloppy Beans. The dog stares into the camera and growls. I’m with you, dog. And also, heh.

Ms. Phillips is eager and outgoing, and ready to tell her story. Backseat Kyle actually does a decent job with the B-roll here, focusing in on little house details that inform us what Ms. Phillip’s life is like – a collection of little wooden angels playing musical instruments, a photo of a volunteer fire department that most likely includes her husband, a wedding picture, and a few of those wooden signs with sayings painted on them in whatever that half-cursive, half-print font is that wooden signs with sayings painted on them always use (I’m assuming the font is called “Hobby Lobby” or “Michael’s”). It looks like a cheery, soccer-mommy kind of place, and Ms. Phillips adds to the warmth with her welcoming personality. Again I am reminded of the ways in which this could have been an interesting documentary. Hey, maybe something else supernatural will happen, and Sarah won’t cut and run this time. But no. Instead, Mr. Phillips shows up, looking a hell of a lot like Wayne Newton, by the way, and he is not down with this interview shit. He chases the kids out of the house.

They stop at a depressing-looking gas station and complain about bad smells and bugs. Guys, if bad smells and bugs appear everywhere you go, maybe you’re the problem. Just saying. Backseat Kyle entertains himself, and no one else, by performing racist imitations of other nationalities. It’s wildly uncomfortable. Hey Kyle, got any new poop jokes for us instead? For fuck’s sake – now he’s just making gurgling noises for no damn reason while Sarah and Sloppy Beans laugh. There’s no way they actually think this is funny. Or maybe they do, because a plastic bag floats over the car and they lose their shit like it’s the most hilarious thing that’s ever happened.

Who screws up the lyrics to Row Row Row Your Boat? Jeebus.

Now Sloppy Beans is doing a terrible Redd Foxx imitation. God I wish Redd Foxx were still alive – can you imagine? He would destroy these idiots. He’d slap the Redd Foxx right out of Sloppy Beans’ stupid mouth. Sorry, I just checked the runtime, and we’re only halfway through this mess. It’s the big one, Elizabeth. I’m coming to join you.

Now they’re on the hunt for a random guy who wouldn’t give Sarah much information, not even his real name, but he does have a video he wants to show them. Sounds like a really bad idea, guys, so by all means full steam ahead this shit. They find themselves in a desolated area – old warehouses that are rusted and overgrown with weeds, abandoned cars, et cetera. Maybe, just maybe, this is where something scary actually happens? It’s the right place for it at least – no little wooden Hobby Lobby signs here. It really does look like a location where some spooky stuff could go down. In spite of myself, I feel a bit of anticipation. In the end, all we get is a jump scare by a grouchy old man who suddenly pops into view in Sarah’s passenger-side window. And this dude is pissed. He berates and insults the team, which is pretty enjoyable, I must say, claiming that they don’t know what they’re doing (true) and that others have tried to document shadow people before, and they all end up disappearing (if only). Then he says he has video of something to do with shadow people, but he won’t show it if the camera is running. Kyle does keep it running, but makes zero effort to actually film the video grouchy dude is showing Sarah on his phone. Sarah sees something that makes her react with shock, and cut. Then we’re BACK IN THE CAR.

They pull over to pee, and yeah, Backseat Kyle films himself whipping it out. Then we cut to Sarah, who sings a few bars of some bluesy song I don’t know, and she has a really nice voice. I feel bad for this actress for being involved in this mess. She has some talent, but none of that has a chance in this mess of a movie. Not that it matters in the least, but Sloppy Beans, who apparently also saw Grouchy Guy’s video, tells Backseat that it’s security camera footage of a dude walking on some ledge and then getting swallowed up by a shadow and disappearing. Would have been nice to see it, but never mind. Backseat Kyle is too busy doing that found footage thing where one character refuses to believe anything that any other character says about supernatural events. So they bat that around for a while – that didn’t happen. I swear it happened. Come on you’re lying. I’m not lying. etc. etc.

THERE ARE STILL FORTY MINUTES LEFT IN THIS FILM, Y’ALL.

They’re back in the car. Now they’re filming a stream. Back in the car again. Now Sarah is walking along the side of the road, filming scenery with her iPhone. Back in the car again. Trees and more trees. This is like some backwater Skinamarink shit now – just images with occasional sounds. And annoying background music. Siri tells them to turn left, then Sarah is standing on a bridge. Is it possible a shadow person is going to snatch her away? Now she’s under the bridge, down by the river. She almost falls. They react as if this is funny, so whatever movie. Back in the car. Then back outside. Jesus, even for this movie this is some seriously confusing footage. Are they literally driving for half a mile and then pulling over only to get back in the car and drive another half mile and pull over again? Because if that’s not what you’re doing, movie, then for fuck’s sake put the driving footage together and the outdoors footage together and stop chopping this shit up. It’s ridiculous. Although I will say this much; I’ve never been to Tennessee, and it does look beautiful.

More car footage. The car pulls into the parking lot of a restaurant. Then they’re driving again. Then the car pulls into the parking lot of a hotel. Thank god we’re seeing all this parking or we’d never know that they ate dinner or how they got to a hotel! They check into a room. They shower. They review the day’s footage, and no one shows any concern that it’s all garbage, so I call foul. There’s a fly on the wall and no, I do NOT want to be that fly. They sleep. They’re back in the car. Then they’re outside the car loading luggage into the trunk. Wait, what? They already left the hotel, didn’t they? The movie is completely off the rails at this point. No one has the slightest idea what’s happening.

I swear to God, they’re now hiking. They’re hiking. The movie has officially become a travelogue, and a terrible one at that. We get a shot of Sarah peering over a cliff. She looks pretty, but we can clearly see her unfortunate tramp stamp. Goddamnit, Sarah. Make better choices. I want to like you! Now they’re eating again. I’ll spare you the shot of Sloppy Beans opening his mouth while it’s full of food and waggling his tongue at the camera. True to form, we cut from that scene of them eating their food to a scene of them – no lie I swear – STANDING IN LINE TO ORDER THAT FOOD. Who edited this mess? Now they’re touring a cave. There are thirty-three minutes left in this movie. THIRTY-THREE MINUTES. Remember when they were interviewing folks about shadow people? Yeah, those were fun times.

Now they’re riding a tram up a mountainside and we’re treated to the recorded tape spewing information for the tourists. Did you know there’s an eight-degree difference between Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain? Or that Lookout Mountain has the steepest railway in the world? Back in the car. Tunnels. More tunnels. I expect the movie at any moment to flash back to the day Sarah was born, but it doesn’t. Bridge. Tunnel. Train. Trees. After all of this Tennessee tourism shit we’ve been watching for twenty minutes, Sarah asks Backseat Kyle if the camera is rolling – come on, Sarah, do you really have to ask the man who filmed himself peeing if he’s rolling? – then she turns to it and says, “We’re in Tennessee right now.” No shit? Wild! I thought they were in a rain forest. Anyway, they are on their way to their last interview. Let’s hope something happens. Or nothing happens. Who cares. Sarah says they’re going to interview a Stephanie Yost and she really thinks it will be an interesting story. Backseat Kyle speaks for all of us at that moment:

MOST of them, though? They’ve filmed two.

The only thing keeping me going at this point is knowing that eventually, they are going to disappear.

Sarah does not take kindly to Kyle’s negativity, and Sloppy Beans chastises him for not being civil (ie, telling the truth). Then Sarah, bless her heart, takes responsibility for the entire, shitty endeavor by blaming herself for being a bad interviewer. This is ridiculous, seeing as she’s been a fine interviewer, aside from being too scared to stick around and film the flickering lights. And honestly none of them have sucked at their jobs – the sound is fine, the camera work is fine. The problem is that they’ve interviewed two people and been iced out by two others, and are instead filming themselves eating and peeing and farting and thinking it’s interesting. Kyle continues to speak truth to power, and as much as I hate to agree with this cretin about anything, he’s totally in the right here. They should have made the most of the interviews they did have, and the fact that they didn’t makes the fact that they’re still pursuing this shitty documentary a moot point. Even if this last interview is any good, it’s not enough to make a documentary out of, and they still don’t have any documented evidence that the phenomenon is real. He really hammers the other two about this, which Sarah again interprets as him being negative, when in reality he’s the only one making any sense. Sarah is far too sensitive to her subjects’ feelings and doesn’t want to push them, and while that’s nice and all, it doesn’t exactly bode well for her journalism career. So preach, Kyle.

Ok, so now we’re in much more familiar found footage territory. Kyle and Sloppy Beans think they’re lost, and Sarah insists they aren’t. Backseat Kyle starts complaining and Sarah starts getting snappy. It may be the first time I’ve ever been happy to see bickering in a found footage movie because at least it means the movie has remembered what it’s supposed to be. Oh hey – they found it! Stephanie Yost’s house is in sight. And ol’ Steffy is standing on her porch with her hands in her pockets, looking all sorts of unhappy. She’ll give the interview, but she’s not letting them in her house. Way to keep your home smelling fresh, Stef.

Turns out Stephanie lost both her sister and her brother to what she believes are shadow people. Man, that’s a hell of a bummer. Soon after the second disappearance, Stephanie and her mom fled the house, and she’s not seen any sinister shadows since. Sarah asks what happened to the house, which seems like a weird question, but it sets up Stephanie to say it’s just a few miles away. Sarah asks if they can go film it, and Stephanie reluctantly agrees, although she doesn’t recommend it and warns them that they shouldn’t go.

We’re one hour and twenty-two minutes in, folks, and we’re entering an abandoned house. I feel like this should have happened about one hour and twenty-one minutes ago, but whatever. They peer in the windows, but it’s too dark to see anything. Sloppy Beans tries the back door (I know that sounds like one of his awful sexual encounter tales, but in this case it’s literal) and eureka! It’s open. Then Sarah inexplicably exclaims that there’s no way they’re actually going inside. What the fuck, Sarah? I still want to like you, but this is ridiculous. First off, I am sure the woman knew you would go inside, why else would you go there? And secondly, what kind of documentary filmmaker are you? Why would you pass up an opportunity to film a creepy, abandoned house where two children were taken by shadow people? What do you need, a written invitation? A cookie? A lot of vocal haranguing by two obnoxious idiots? Oh wait – that’s what she actually gets, and it works. I really hate Sarah for making me agree with Backseat Kyle and Sloppy Beans. Not really, Sarah. Against all logic and reason I still like you. And I would totally respect your desire not to encroach upon the Yost’s privacy if you weren’t making a documentary that needs exactly this type of footage.

Backseat insists they spend the night in the house – which isn’t in nearly bad enough shape to be all that scary, but is definitely in good enough shape for them to sleep there without getting tetanus or something. And as Kyle points out, this is their best shot yet to catch a shadow person on film, seeing as Stephanie was convinced that the house itself had something to do with the supernatural weirdness she experienced as a child – she never saw another shadow person again after they moved out.

Come on, Beans. You have no best judgment.

And oh my god – this movie is FINALLY acting like the movie it’s supposed to be. Backseat is talking about putting security cameras all over the house. Yes! Why did this take so damn long? Stephanie Yost and your creepy, abandoned but still totally livable house, where have you been for the past hour and twenty-eight minutes? Just think gang, something might actually happen now. The last supernatural event we got was back at Mae’s house when the lamps flickered and growled, remember that? Good times. They discuss how there’s no electric or running water, but I’m so happy they’re finally DOING something that I’m not even gonna question how they’re gonna run all these cameras with no power. Or how they’re going to catch anything in the dark. Screw it – I’m taking what I can get.

My god, somebody pinch me, because Kyle is actually acting like someone who knows what he’s doing right now. It’s the first time he’s been even remotely tolerable. He even addresses the no power issue in a fairly plausible way. And thank God, because there are only 14 minutes left in this thing. They’re all very tired, so maybe next time don’t waste a day hiking and exploring caves? Just a thought. Sarah needs to pee. She makes Backseat go with her because she’s scared. He gives her shit because of course he does. While they’re back there, Beans sees something on one of the cameras.

We haven’t heard anything so far about shadow people acting like poltergeists and moving stuff around, but whatever movie. I’ll take what I can get.

And hey, we actually see it this time! One of the stuffed animals sitting on a couch bounces around a bit on its own. Sarah immediately wants to leave because of course she does. But it is pretty creepy to see. Even though they’re trying hard to make it look like it’s night when it’s clearly still daylight outside. Sarah is scared. She feels a presence. It’s clear the guys don’t feel what she is feeling, but you can’t blame them for not wanting to leave after days of getting nothing and finally having captured something, anything, supernatural on camera. Sarah comes clean, admitting to the guys that she did see shadow people when she was a kid, that one was tormenting her father to the point that he shot himself, and that she once woke up with a shadow being hovering over her bed. She’s telling this to explain why she’s so scared, but before the guys can react a clock starts chiming. It’s a clock that was clearly not working before, but now it’s somehow working again. And while this is all kinda fun, typical haunted house stuff, I can’t help but notice how it doesn’t fit with any story of shadow people we’ve heard up to this point. Nothing about things moving around or stuff starting to work or ceasing to work in its presence. So far we’ve only heard about the shadow people being seen and making other people disappear. So, this is all a bit weird as it doesn’t fit the story so far as we know it. It’s as if the director suddenly realized he only had ten minutes to get to the scary part so he just threw every horror trope he could think of into this house, even if it made no sense.

Five minutes left, and a door slams somewhere in the house. Now Beans wants to leave, too, but Backseat is holding out. He heads back into the hallway where they heard the door slamming. We see the camera fall, and just like that, Backseat Kyle is no more. I mean, we had a decent scary moment there, but we definitely did NOT see any shadow people, and the way Kyle got got doesn’t exactly mesh with the other stories we’ve heard so far. But we’ve only got a few minutes left, so we’ll have to take what we can get.

It takes about fifteen seconds for Beans to also poof into nothingness. We don’t see anything, he’s just there one minute and gone the next, and Sarah is left alone screaming his name. Now, Sarah has never once been carrying a camera throughout this disaster of a movie, and there’s no logical reason why she would be carrying one now, but a camera whirls around and sees what is almost, kinda sorta, a shadow of some sort, and then she screams and it’s all over. So, okay, I guess. At least Sarah gives us some good screams before she disappears. Wouldn’t you know the one time Beans and Backseat decide to be quiet is the one time it would have been cool to hear their voices?

And that, my friends, is the absolute worst found footage movie I have ever seen. And now you’ve more or less seen it too. You’re welcome.

Found Footage Fave: Lake Mungo (SPOILERS!)

Posted on April 14, 2023 by marey mercy

What’s the horror: ghosts

Does the dog die? Nope

Gore factor: None – just a few shots of a drowned body

Re-watch scale: Heavy rotation, in more ways than one

Lake Mungo is my favorite kind of found footage: mockumentary style. It follows The Palmer family – mom June, dad Russell, and brother Matthew – and the bizarre events surrounding the death of the daughter, Alice. The director, Ausstralian Joel Anderson, has not directed another motion picture since this one came out in 2008, and not much at all is known about him as he was hesitant to do interviews when it came out. Perhaps he wanted to keep the mystique of the film alive, who knows, but it’s a shame he hasn’t done anything else as this is one of the most bittersweet and sad mockumentaries I’ve ever seen. There is a lingering sadness to this one that haunts for days – which is part of what’s happening to the Palmers in the film. The extent to which we, as the audience, empathize with this family is intense, at least for those who loved the film. There are those who go into it hearing such fantastic things that they come away disappointed because the horror here is mostly of the human variety – the way the family deals with grief, and the way you can live your whole life with someone and not really know them at all. It’s got its share of creepy moments, and one humdinger of a jump scare, but this is a quiet film that deals with the silence and unanswered questions the living are left with when a loved one dies, especially one as young as Alice.

The actors are very convincing in their roles; I’ve heard it said that their acting is ‘wooden,’ but to me, it’s quite a genuine representation of how a family would act in front of a camera while discussing the death of a loved one. What some people think is wooden acting is, in my humble opinion, exactly the way a family like this would present themselves on camera; they’re keeping it together for the cameras, trying to get Alice’s story out into the world, and they’re going to do their best to stay collected and calm lest the whole thing goes off the rails. The mother and father both come across as smart, stoic, and damaged, but determined, in the end, to move on. The brother does the same, but his way of processing his sister’s death is, well, a bit problematic.

AND HERE COME THE SPOILERS!!

We first get the backstory of what happened to Alice Palmer. News footage tells the tale of the young girl who drowned in a nearby lake (but NOT Lake Mungo; that’s for later) and was found by a rescue team several hours later. The family had been on a day trip to the dam when Matthew decided to return to shore, leaving Alice swimming in the water alone. He reaches the shore, and Alice is nowhere to be seen. Police are called, and when her body is found Dad is called down to identify the body. Mom wasn’t up to seeing her daughter that way, and as Dad admits in his interview, that may have been a mistake.

Alice’s room as it was the night she died

Soon after her death, the family begins to hear strange sounds around the house. A contractor working at the dam where Alice drowned finds a figure in the shadows of one of his photos that looked mysteriously like Alice. Matthew sets up cameras around the house to try and capture what might be going on, and in several shots we see apparitions of Alice, sometimes walking past the camera, and other times hiding in corners of rooms. Things seem to be going down the same path as so many horror movies and mockumentaries that came before, but then – a twist.

A ghostly image of Alice Matthew captures on camera

Another couple discovers footage they took at the dam on the same day as the contractor, and once they realize the coincidence, they go back through their videos of the day to see if they too captured Alice’s likeness on film. And it turns out they did capture a figure in the background, just like the contractor, except from their angle, it’s clear that the figure is not Alice at all – it’s Matthew wearing her jacket.

It turns out that his mom’s growing conviction and obsession with the idea that the body Russell identified that night was not Alice, and that Alice might still be alive, prompts Matthew to run with the idea in order to convince his father to exhume the body and put his mother’s obsession to rest. At least, that’s why he says he did it. It’s really not clear that Matthew himself really understands what compelled him to pull off such a macabre scam, but it does come across that he did so without malice and was perhaps acting out some sort of desire on his part for his sister to still be alive. For whatever reason he did it, his stunt works – Russell starts to doubt that he did actually see the body of his daughter that night, and he agrees to allow the body to be exhumed and DNA tested. This is where you might expect another twist, but there is none – the body is Alice’s, after all. She’s really, truly gone.

The movie does something clever here; by having Matthew explain to the documentary crew exactly how he pulled off getting those ghostly apparitions of his sister on film, the director is essentially allowing the character to reveal his own secrets. Using old videos of Alice and strategically placing the television playing the footage opposite a mirror or other reflective surface, Matthew has made it appear that Alice’s ghost is haunting the house. It’s a pretty neat trick, and it has the audience looking out for further tricks as the story moves forward. But things aren’t that simple here. The story is just getting started.

A psychic has gotten involved by this time; he runs a local radio show where people call in and ask him to help with all sorts of paranormal issues and with connecting to dead relatives and the like. June feels strangely comforted by his presence over the airwaves and asks him to come help them out. He even holds a seance wherein they try to contact Alice, but nothing happens.

As we delve into Alice’s history, it’s clear things were not quite right between her and her mother. It’s handed out in little bits and scraps, but it seems clear that June had become rather distant towards Alice as she grew into her teenage years; as if there was some deeper level of love June was unwilling to invest in her. It’s revealed that this coldness, for lack of a better word, runs deep on Mom’s side of the family, as she experienced the same distance from her own mother as a child. Alice and June, in short, were just not getting along at the time of her death, and it’s clear Mom carries the guilt of that in her heart. At one point she tells the camera that she hopes Alice knew she loved her, which is telling. She’s not at all sure Alice did know.

And in spite of Matthew’s revelation about his deception, the strange noises around the house don’t stop. June decides to go back over the old tapes he produced, wondering if she can see anything else in them that might explain whatever is going on, and sure enough she finds something in one of the videos – there’s a figure hiding out in Alice’s bedroom, all crouched down in a corner. Even weirder, Mom tells us that this figure is – their neighbor?

Meet the neighbors – on second thought, don’t

June rightly decides that if the neighbor – Brett Toohey was his name – is skulking around Alice’s room at night, there’s got to be a reason and it’s probably not a good one. Some snooping reveals the truth about Brett’s late-night visit (or visits, who knows how many times the guy snuck in there). He was looking for a tape that June found in Alice’s belongings. How does June know he was looking for this tape? Because the tape reveals that Alice had become involved in some sort of sexual “relationship” with Mr. Toohey and his wife. It’s not clear when this situation developed or how long it had gone on – Alice had babysat the creepy Toohey’s children for years – and it’s also not clear why Alice has this tape in her possession. Now, Alice can’t be more than 16 or 17 at the time of her death, which makes this nothing like an actual sexual relationship at all and much more of sexual abuse of a minor, but the movie doesn’t dwell on that, which isn’t the greatest choice in my opinion. But I hate to admit that at the same time, this revelation about Alice is oddly effective; the flat-out oddness of the revelation, and the magnitude of its effect on Alice, serve well to deepen the sadness and detachment she had from her family when she was alive. Who knows how she felt about this situation with her neighbors, but we can project plenty onto it – it’s deeply wrong, and probably scarring for Alice emotionally, and it probably caused her to feel isolated not just from her family but from everyone around her.

And it’s not just the tape June discovers. In Alice’s planner, June finds a business card taped to one of the pages – and it’s the same psychic the family has been consulting with recently. Why does Alice have his business card in her calendar? Because as it turns out, Alice had been going to see him for readings or sessions or whatever he calls them in the weeks before her death. Dr. Slatter claims he didn’t tell the family he knew Alice due to confidentiality issues, but June ain’t buying it, which seems reasonable. Based on his situation he never should have agreed to meet with the Palmers once he realized who their daughter was, but he did it anyway, and he doesn’t have a really great explanation as to why. He is quickly booted out of the picture, but the whole situation adds yet another layer to Alice’s secret life. Why was she going to see him anyway?

June finds something else in Alice’s planner that triggers a memory; Alice had several days marked off for a trip to Lake Mungo with high school friends at the start of summer. June recalls that Alice wasn’t the same after taking that trip. A few of Alice’s friends are interviewed who reveal that they, too, noticed a change in Alice after that, and that she actually seemed upset about something while still on the trip. Several of Alice’s friends share cell phone footage they took on the night in question, when something clearly upset Alice, and through the dark and shaky video June discovers something – in the background of one shot, Alice can be seen by a small copse of trees, burying something in the ground. Off they go to Lake Mungo.

It’s easy enough for them to find the spot where Alice did her digging, and soon enough they uncover Alice’s cell phone – she’d told June when she got back from the trip that she lost it – along with some jewelry that was special to her. There’s footage on the phone, so they fire that bad boy up and get to viewing.

Alice, looking less than happy to be there

It’s shaky footage of Lake Mungo as Alice walks along, alone in the dark. In the very far distance, her camera spies movement. Then a small speck. The speck gets bigger and it’s clear that it’s a figure. It walks slowly but directly towards Alice. The closer it gets into view, it becomes clear that it’s a person. A female. And slowly it dawns on us – as it must have dawned on Alice – that this figure, this person, is her. The figure moves closer, and we recognize the odd distortion of her face matches the disfigured face of her corpse when it was lifted from the water. This is Alice seeing herself dead, drowned – the face moves right into the camera, and seems to float there for some time. Then it shrieks like a damn banshee and lunges at her. The video cuts out. And that, my friends, is the jump scare to end all jump scares. The director has been slowly tightening the tension for almost an hour at this point, and we’re all ready to spring right out of our seats from being wound so tight. It’s a horrific jolt, being so out of place in such an otherwise quiet film, and it’s wildly effective.

So this is why Alice started seeing Dr. Slatter, and this is why she was so affected by the Lake Mungo trip. She saw her own death coming for her. We see footage of Alice in one of her sessions with the psychic, and she describes to him her feelings of isolation and loneliness. She describes a dream in which she walks into her parents’ bedroom at night, soaking wet, and stands at the foot of their bed, crying and begging them to wake up. But they don’t respond. They don’t hear her. They can’t help her. And Alice realizes she is completely alone. It’s – pretty sad, actually. It’s a terrible realization for someone to have at her age, and it’s a terrible way to feel at any age. Whether or not we can believe she actually saw her own death that night, we can sympathize with her pain, and it makes her premature death all the sadder, that she had to die while carrying the burden of so much fear and loneliness.

This seems to be the missing piece in the puzzle for the family. After making this discovery, as June describes it, they actually start to move on. They don’t make any actual decisions to move on, it just sort of happens, as if they are finally able to put Alice’s memory to rest. June even visits Dr. Slatter one last time, to get some closure on the whole experience before they move out of the house where so much tragedy has happened, and try to put themselves back together again. At this point, the film cuts between a session Alice had with Slatter before she died and the session June is currently having with him. June describes walking into the now-empty house, and moving towards Alice’s room. Alice describes being in the house alone, and hearing her mother coming towards her. June sees herself entering Alice’s room and looking for her everywhere – but she can’t feel her in the house anymore. “She’s gone,” she tells Slatter, and she appears to be at peace. In Alice’s session, she describes her mother not being able to see her, even though she is in the room, and then her mother turns and walks away without saying a word. “She’s gone,” Alice says, and from her perspective, it has a completely different tone.

Matthew’s backyard photo, with the image of Alice in front of the bushes

The film moves from this scene into a replay of photos and filmed moments the crew has shown before, but this time our eyes are drawn to what we missed before – even in Matthew’s faked images, there’s a presence we’d never noticed in every single one.

The same picture, with another Alice sitting on a bench off to the right of the frame

That’s definitely NOT Matthew in Alice’s jacket

And that’s not Matthew off to the left either

Can you see her? It’s tough to make out, but she’s standing behind the cabinets

Faked apparitions or not, it appears Alice has been in the house with them since her death. And based on her session with Dr. Slatter it seems Alice was having experiences of her life after death before she died. And while the family has found the closure they were seeking, selling the house and moving elsewhere to start over, it’s not so clear that Alice has gotten the closure she needs to move on. Looking back at that first photo we saw of the family, taken on the day of their move out of the house, we can see Alice staring out at them from the window behind them.

So what does this mean for Alice? Is she trapped in the house now, doomed to haunt it for all eternity? Or does her staying behind mean she’s releasing the family and letting them go? Did she guide June to discover her secrets for some reason? Or is she simply trapped in the house, watching the family carry on without ever being able to reach them? Does she know she is dead, or is she still stuck in the house, thinking she’s alive and no one’s listening to her? There aren’t any answers to these questions, which seems fitting really. It’s like June says at one point: “Death takes everything eventually. It’s the meanest, dumbest machine there is, and it just keeps coming and it doesn’t care.”

The movie isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. It’s slow, and quiet, and definitely not your typical horror film. But what it definitely IS, is haunting. It’s one of the most effective portraits of being haunted by grief I’ve ever watched, really, because of how subtle and confusing it is. And the way the filmmaker managed to create a haunting that torments the dead as much as it does the living adds to the grief.

We as the audience are left feeling more like Alice at the end of it than the rest of the family. We’re stuck in that house with her, watching them leave us behind, and we don’t at all know what that means for us, and where, if anywhere, we will go. And that, my friends, is terribly, tragically sad. And scary as hell.

Horror Fave: Hellbender (SPOILERS!!)

Posted on April 6, 2023 by marey mercy

What’s the horror: witches

Does the dog die? There are some dead forest animals; mostly we see the bones and that’s it

Gore factor: Medium – there’s lots of blood in this one, but not as much actual gore

Re-watch scale: Heavy rotation. This is a new film but I’ve already watched it many times.

First, let’s talk about the filmmakers here: The Adams Family (with one D, not two, so no nostalgic TV connection there) consists of mom, dad, and two daughters, who do all of the acting, writing, producing, directing, etc. among them. Sure, they call in resources when needed, but for the most part, this is some seriously all-in-the-family indie shit. And for the tiny budgets they work with, the two movies I’ve seen from them (they’ve made more but they are hard to find) are quite good. I much prefer their latest, Hellbender, to their previous offering, The Deeper You Dig, just because it has a more cohesive story, better pacing, and a more satisfying ending, but TDYD is also a pretty unique and creative horror film.

The Adams Family is led by actors Toby Poser and John Adams. Adams was a male model back in the 90s, and Poser was a “bad girl” on the soap opera Guiding Light. In other words, even in their fifties, these are quite beautiful people. Poser in particular is captivating on-screen, at least in my opinion – we are the same age, and she appears in her films with almost no makeup, a fair amount of wrinkles, and zero plastic surgery. She’s also a woman of normal size, although a look back at her time on GL reveals she was as slim in the 90s as I was, back when it took zero effort to stay thin. And her hair is amazing.

Poser and daughter Zelda Adams in Hellbender

While John Adams played lead opposite Toby Poser in TDYD, here he is mostly off-screen, only appearing in one short scene – this is primarily Toby and Zelda’s show, with some of older sister Lulu Adams worked in for good measure.

The story involves Poser as the mother, who never gets a name in spite of her leading role, and daughter Zelda as Izzy – true to form for this family, Zelda has quite the modeling career going as well as her writing, producing, and acting gigs. She’s signed with Elite models, which is about as, well, elite as you can get.

She’s quite good in this film, and I won’t do that thing where social media shits on her for having an in-road into Hollywood because of her parents’ relative success – I get where other actors may be overlooked because someone else has a famous last name, but it also makes a lot of sense to me that acting talent can run in families, somehow, so if the actor or actress in question is good at what they do, I’m not bothered. Everyone who’s never acted thinks it would be so easy, but being a good actor takes a certain amount of instinct not everyone has, and in my opinion, talent is talent. And Zelda Adams has it. Not to mention working with her family on a micro-budget and helping them do everything themselves.

So here’s the deal: Mom and Izzy live an isolated life in the mountains of- somewhere? – the setting isn’t stated that I can recall. Things are a little odd from the jump – Izzy is homeschooled and has some unnamed illness that requires her to remain in isolation from others, only able to socialize with Mom. To make up for that, Mom plays bass in their two-woman band, called, appropriately enough, “H6LLB6ND6R,” while Izzy plays drums. They really camp it up when they practice in their basement – donning theatrical Bowie-style makeup and performing on a makeshift stage. Hellbender’s music accompanies the film, and while it’s all rather slow and moody and not particularly complicated skill-wise, the duo can flip from a whisper to a scream on a dime, and the melodies are intriguing.

There’s an odd strain between mother and daughter in the beginning of the film – a restraint that feels like it’s about to break loose. This is ultimately a coming-of-age story; Izzie is chafing against the restrictions of her supposed illness, and it’s clear Mother is aware of this and concerned about how much longer she can keep her daughter under her thumb. Not for lack of trying though; the opening scene of Mom leaving Izzy home alone to drive into town is chock full of “keep out” imagery:

It’s clear, however, that Mom loves Izzy deeply, and that Izzy reciprocates that love.But band practice with Mom in the basement is starting to feel a bit pointless to Izzy; she suggests that perhaps they should start to branch out a bit and play live at parties or in town. Mom is 100% against this idea, though; reminding her that it’s too dangerous for Izzy to socialize with others. You may start to wonder at this point whether or not Izzy would be in better health if Mom fed her something besides platefuls of twigs and forest berries.

Finger not included, until later that is

It’s no surprise that Izzy starts wandering farther out from their isolated home, and eventually stumbles across the other humans who are off-limits to her; a lost uncle visiting family nearby encounters her while lost in the forest, and when Mom finds out Izzy’s come in contact with someone who could harm her, she takes care of it in a decidedly not-normal fashion.

Once Mom poofs said uncle into nonexistence we’re clear on where the weirdness in their relationship comes from; Mom’s clearly some sort of witch with magical powers of the destructive kind, and daughter Izzy has no idea. In other words, Mom’s got secrets, y’all. And as Izzy wanders farther into the physical and symbolic forest with restless teenaged curiosity, the tighter Mom wants to hold onto her.

Enter Amber, whom Izzy meets when she accidentally ventures into her backyard. Amber is likeable and friendly, seemingly unphased at the appearance of a random stranger on her parent’s property – which we’ll eventually learn is because it’s not her parent’s property but a vacation home she’s ‘borrowing’ while whoever owns it is away – and invites her over for a swim and a beer. Izzy, we learn, doesn’t even own a bathing suit, so Amber promises to bring her one the next time she visits. At this, Izzy beams, clearly pleased to have made a friend, and the next day she sneaks away for another visit, which doesn’t pan out as well as she’d hoped.

This time, Amber has friends over, and after they ooh and ahh over Izzy’s musical skills, they settle down for some serious drinking. It’s pretty clear booze is new to Izzy, but she’s game to eat the tequila worm, which causes her to stare woozily into the distance as if she’s going to be sick – which would be understandable really – until she lets loose with a guttural, otherworldly howl. The other kids burst out laughing, and right then the owner of the summer house comes bursting through the fence, screaming at the kids to get the hell off his property. Off everyone goes into the forest, including Izzy, but she’s clearly under the influence of the alcohol, or the worm, or something, because she’s still acting stoned as hell and unable to speak. Unfortunately, their great escape ends with Izzy attempting to strangle poor Amber, who pushes her away and darts of deeper into the forest, understandably telling Izzy to stay away from her, so, end of friendship, I guess? Which is a bummer, because she seemed like a genuinely nice person and it was nice for Izzy to get a moment or two of bonding with someone other than Mom, but whatever is wrong with her has gotten in the way – and by now she’s figured out that what is wrong with her is not some illness that makes her susceptible to germs or whatever.

A confrontation with Mom is inevitable at this point, and when Izzy returns home Mom is waiting. She knows something’s up, and when Izzy asks her what exactly they are Mom spills the beans (or twigs I guess): they’re witches, from a long line of women who practice a very dark magic indeed: in fact, they are able to reproduce asexually, eliminating all need for male participation, and they draw their power, quite literally, from eating living things. Hence Izzy’s reaction to the tequila worm.

Mom’s kept all this from Izzy to protect her, or so she says – their power is dark and ugly, she says, and it is feared in the outside world. She believes there’s no way for Hellbenders to survive in the modern world unless they hide their power, and the only way Mom sees to keep their evil tendencies under control is to isolate. It’s clear she’s not just talking about keeping Izzy away from her own nature, here, but also herself. She’s done things in her past that agonize her, but as she tells Izzy, she did what she was taught to do. Until she reached a point of believing that what she, and all Hellbenders, were doing was wrong. Drawing power from death and destruction can only lead to one’s own D&D, in the end – at least, that’s how Mom sees it. Izzy, totally new to the idea of her own power, sees things differently. But we got a glimpse of the Hellbender in action when Mom disintegrated Sad Uncle in the first act, so we know where embracing their Hellbenders can take them.

At this point, the movie becomes a bit predictable, but it’s still fun to watch. Izzy wants to know more about her powers, and Mom sets out to teach her now that the cat’s out of the bag. But she does so with hesitation; she doesn’t want Izzy’s newfound knowledge to overly influence her or change her – which is exactly what happens. Due to Mom’s deception, no matter how well-intentioned it may have been, Izzy has already destroyed the one normal friendship she’d managed to make – Amber has made it very clear that she wants nothing more to do with her, but to Izzy, the connection they made is far too important to discard. She’s never had a friend other than Mom, and it turns out Mom’s been less than forthcoming with her. It’s coming of age run amok, and Izzy lashes out at the people around her whom she sees as her betrayers – her mother, for lying to her all those years, and Amber for rejecting her friendship and refusing to give her a second chance. Mom has tried to explain to Izzy that their powers can do no good in the world and that it’s their responsibility to suppress them, but she’s coming from a place of experience in the witchy world where she was able to make that choice. Izzy has just discovered her own power at a crucial time in her development, and the reality is that her peers are always going to treat her like an outcast, like a freak – something every teenager fears, something that seems even far more likely for Izzy – and the bond she shared with her mother was based on a lie.

It doesn’t take long for Izzy to push beyond Mom’s boundaries around their history – she easily gains access to Mom’s secret sanctum and learns more about her heritage. She starts off on a discovery journey of her own, practicing the darker magic Mom is desperate for her to avoid. And when one last attempt at friendship with Amber falls flat, she takes revenge – against both Amber and her mother. All of Mom’s secrets have been spilled, and Izzy uses them against those she sees as causing her pain.

Ultimately, Izzy spares her mother from Amber’s fate – so long Amber, we barely knew ya – but it’s clear the power has shifted. Mom is scared of Izzy now, and Izzy knows it. The final moments of the film reverse the dynamic of the first act, with Izzy telling Mom she’s going into town, while Mom is forced to stay where she is.

There are intimations throughout the unspooling of the Hellbender mythology (to which we’re given only glimpses) that these centuries of asexual reproduction include an element of violence on behalf of children against their mothers; the mother who gives the child life must eventually sacrifice her life – literally – to the daughter, who is compelled to eliminate her. I’m guessing at this because none of it is explained clearly, which I think is best. To overly explain the mystery of this world our protagonist is just beginning to explore would be incongruous with what’s happening at this moment. Izzy doesn’t know, and doesn’t care, about the darker side of her family history which might give her pause; she’s actively rejecting the perspective of her mother during this process, so it makes sense that what we learn is barely enough to grasp also. We’re only shown what Izzy wants to focus on, which is a power that’s been denied her for 16 years. At the movie’s end, Izzy’s path forward is unclear, but she’s already killed one person within weeks of learning about what she’s capable of, so it doesn’t look good for anyone. Perhaps she will eventually draw the same conclusion as her mother, who has made it clear to Izzy that she regrets her past acts of violence, but it’s also clear, based on how things turned out for Mom, that fully denying her power is a losing proposition also. We know Izzy’s fated to reproduce and grapple with a daughter of her own and how who that girl becomes determines her own future. Izzy may be feeling her witchy oats at the moment, but moving forward is going to be complicated.

Found Footage Flail: There Are Monsters (SPOILERS!!)

Posted on April 3, 2023 by marey mercy

Reason for filming: A group of film students are sent on assignment to collect alumni interviews for their college.

What’s the horror: Aliens, zombies

Does the dog die? No animal cruelty

Gore factor: Minimal

Re-watch scale: Occasional re-watch.

There’s a cool story at the heart of There Are Monsters; I just wish it was executed differently. While this movie is labeled as a found-footage film, for at least half of its runtime none of the characters are actually doing any filming; they’re all on-screen being filmed by some other camera. Based on that, it’s baffling to me why they chose to use found-footage techniques for the entire film. It’s perfectly fine to use occasional found-footage in a movie and more traditional methods for the rest of it; plenty of films have done this to good effect. But for whatever reason, the filmmakers chose here to keep a consistent, shaky-cam style even when none of the characters are doing the filming.

To make things worse, this is actually some of the most over-the-top shaky-camera work I’ve ever seen in a found footage film, and it’s not even really a found footage film. That’s quite a feat to accomplish. There are actually entire scenes that are NOTHING but blur and movement – we cut to a scene of blurred light that is also spinning around for no reason, then just cut to another scene without any idea why we watched that madness. The camera is constantly shifting out of focus while characters are on-screen, and at times it just never focuses on any of them at all. Even scenes that are just the four characters having a conversation go by in a whir of motion; the camera constantly jump-cuts between them and goes in and out of focus to boot. It’s kind of a mess.

So why would I ever write about a movie like this, or ever bother to re-watch it? Because the story, while derivative, is told quite an interesting way, and the movie is great at building tension and providing a decent payoff in the end. There are also some great jump scares and cool effects at play; I just wish the found footage conceit had been done away with altogether.

The story is this: a group of film students set off to interview alumni that the college can use on their website. Along the way, the crew of four starts to notice people around them with some really strange behavior. They see unresponsive people standing still with their backs to them. They keep seeing twins everywhere. And every once in awhile someone gives them a creepy smile that’s just a little off – keep in mind, this movie was made in 2013, well before this year’s Smile hit theaters, so it’s not like it’s copying that particular feature.

Two of the main characters, Beth and Terry, take all of this weirdness to heart straight away, but of course we have to have that one person who just refuses to believe any of it is real until the last possible moment. That person in this movie is named Jeff, and the actor looks so much like the dude from Entourage that I had to stop and look him up to see if it was the same guy. It isn’t.

Maybe it’s my loathing for Entourage that made me hate Jeff so much, but I think it had more to do with just how long this character stayed committed to naysaying everything that happened as no big deal. I wanted to cut out his tongue if he used the word “just” one more time (It’s just the wind. She just has a cough. It’s just the flu. They’re just getting ready. You get the idea). Seriously, his refusal to take anything seriously becomes quite maddening, especially when one little glimpse at his friend Dan’s diary scribbles convince him everyone’s been right when he’s been confronted with far better evidence by his friends that he JUST refuses to believe.

It turns out that some sort of force, possibly alien, is taking over human bodies, creating exact replicas of them that take over their daily lives. And while these replicas look exactly like their human counterparts, they don’t know how to behave like humans, and their attempts at it often fail – like the freaky twins’ makeup applications above. This works well in the opening act of the film to keep us interested in what the hell might be going on without giving away too much – a receptionist at a school is wearing her shirt inside-out. A man in a waiting room writes random letters and scribbles all over his crossword puzzle. As previously mentioned, the group comes across random people standing with their backs to them, perfectly still and unresponsive. And occasionally, someone dazzles them with that unnerving, too-wide grin. So what exactly is going on?

The film does a good job building up all these strange occurrences, culminating in a pretty awesome scene where whatever’s going on starts to happen to everyone all around them. And once Jeff is finally convinced that people are losing their minds – or their souls, or whatever – the group takes off running. It turns out that enough humans have been taken over by that time that the strange force controlling them all decides there’s no longer any need to hide, and once that happens, it’s zombie time.

In looking up the cast for this movie, I discovered this actor died from brain cancer at 32. RIP, buddy.

From this point forward, the movie becomes your typical third-act run-from-the-monsters-and-try-to-survive fearfest, but shaky camera aside it’s well-done – although it goes on just a bit too long, and does that thing where it manages to pack in about three endings where the movie easily could have stopped, then keeps going. But the chase is fun, and there are some good jump scares thrown in for added pizzaz. Unfortunately, the damn cameras just get shakier and shakier, even though no one is filming anymore, which seriously mars the enjoyment of the film overall. It’s too bad the director went this route with it, because it’s pretty solid otherwise.

Found Footage Fave: The Houses October Built (SPOILERS!)

Posted on April 5, 2022 by marey mercy

Reason for filming: A group of life-long friends rent an RV and go on a road trip the week of Halloween, to try and discover the most extreme haunt experiences possible.

What’s the horror: haunts gone wild

Does the dog die? No animal cruelty

Gore factor: None

Re-watch scale: Heavy rotation. This is another one I can watch at any time.

The Houses October Built is an interesting found footage film with a lot going on all at once. It’s part documentary (there are real interviews with real haunt workers), part horror story (just how much of what’s happening to these characters is a part of the ‘extreme’ haunt they’re trying to track down, and how much of it is the work of true psychopaths who are out to cause them harm?), and part social commentary (the protagonists make a lot of assumptions about the ‘backwoods’ haunt workers they encounter in the small towns they pass through, and it’s at least hinted at that their privileged unawareness is part of what causes their trip to go awry; there’s also the issue of how the four male characters’ slightly toxic masculinity at times puts the one female friend in danger). This is not a universally-loved found footage film by any means, but in my opinion everything melds together in a pretty satisfactory way, even though at times it can feel scattered or even slightly out of control. It’s an interesting mix that creates a pretty unique found-footage experience.

A lot of the enjoyment of this movie hinges on how you feel about the five characters you follow through the film. It’s a road trip story, with five Texans (shout-out to Texas!) who rent an RV and film themselves going on a week-long road trip across both Texas and Louisiana, looking for off-the-beaten-path, more-scary-than-usual haunted attractions. A lot of time is spent with these characters in the RV cutting up and discussing what they want to get out of the trip, and if you don’t find them likeable or their chemistry engaging I can’t imagine you would enjoy watching this one. Personally I find them all likeable (although some are more likeable than others, but that’s necessary to move the plot along when things start getting dicey – someone has to be the asshole that keeps pushing the more cautious characters into sketchy situations) and I find their chemistry to be very natural and charming (two of the characters are real-life brothers, and several of the cast members really are friends). We spend a lot of time with these people in their journey across Texas in their rented RV, so being able to tolerate them is pretty essential to enjoying the film.

Let’s meet the team! Bobby, Jeff, Brandy, Mikey, and Zach

The film starts off with some actual news reports of haunted house tragedies that have occurred in recent years – the haunt worker who accidentally hung herself for real while working but who was already dead before it was discovered, the haunt worker who was actually an escaped murderer. And who knows how much interview footage they actually recorded during the making of this thing, but they definitely picked the more chilling segments to intersperse throughout the movie, such as the dude who described his experience as one of “getting out of my own fucked-up headspace and taking out all that aggression on someone else for a few hours.” Yikes.

Each aspect of the film – the haunts themselves, the interviews, the characters’ reactions to their surroundings – escalates over the course of the movie, and if nothing else, this is a movie that knows how to build tension. The first few haunts are impressive, but more fun than scary, yet each successive attraction grows darker and more disturbing. There’s a shift from the concept of a haunted house patrons want to enjoy to a terror experience they have to endure, and the boundaries of what is acceptable to portray and impose on people are subtly, but constantly, being pushed. Throughout this descent, there are also many warnings about the various stages of danger these people might be in, with the one female character, Brandy, being the most vulnerable. At one point, a character in a haunt starts whispering her name and telling her, “Brandy…you’re donna die.” At another point, some shady male characters who appear to be working with an extreme haunt (it’s unclear to what extent they’re involved) trap her in a bathroom and threaten her. There’s another incident where someone sneaks into the RV and films the gang while they are sleeping, and whoever is behind the camera takes a particular interest in Brandy, even reaching out and pretending to caress her sleeping cheek.

At each escalating stage, it’s unfortunate that Brandy’s friends fail to recognize not only that Brandy might be an actual target but also her growing discomfort with what’s going on. After the two men trap her in a bathroom, we hear Bobby saying to the others, “We can never leave Brandy alone again,” which is NOT a realistic solution to the problem. When the video that was taken in the RV ends up online in a haunt chat room, the dude’s response is “don’t tell Brandy, she’ll freak out and want to leave.” Perhaps the best example of the men’s inability to recognize that they are in over their heads and are actually not able to protect her, we hear Zach yelling to some haunt workers “Don’t you touch her!” while he’s got a bag over his head and his hands tied behind his back. In response to this command, the haunt worker simply kicks him to the ground, and Brandy is left to deal with the situation alone.

It’s clear that this group and genuinely cares about each other as friends, including Brandy – but the guys appear unaware that they are getting themselves into a situation they can’t control. In fact, they simply seem unable to conceive of the idea that there are situations they can’t handle, even as the evidence that indicates the opposite stacks higher and higher. There are points throughout the journey where most of them express doubt about whether or not they should continue, with the exception of Zach, who, as the organizer of the whole trip, is the most insistent that they all see it through to the end. It’s one thing to seek out extreme haunts when we know that’s what we’re going for, but it’s another thing to be surrounded by a bunch of assholes out in the woods, complains Mike at one point. It’s all part of it, Zach reassures him. We just have to go with it. But by the time the final “extreme” haunt begins. it’s clear even Zach is nervous and feigning more confidence than he actually feels.

The source of this mysterious extreme haunt experience the group hears about and eventually finds – or rather, the haunt experience finds them – is sketchy from the beginning, and the film does a good job of making the origins of this climactic event unclear. There are hints from the first haunt stop that the group has made some enemies – at one point, Mikey finds a ladder and sneaks up onto the roof of the building, shouting an Almost Famous-like “I’m a Halloween God!” into a megaphone and inspiring a chorus of raucous cheers and applause from the hundreds of haunt-goers gathered below. It’s a silly, spontaneous, frat-boy-ish move that has no ill intent, but that seriously pisses off the owners of the haunt. In fact, haunt characters/workers from that first haunt (as well as each successive one) will make appearances at later attractions, sometimes even though they have traveled hundreds of miles since then; the camera will quickly pan past a familiar clown or creepy doll-girl or deranged rabbit that we know we’ve already seen at some past stop, but the images flash past so quickly that we can’t be sure. So – are they being followed from the beginning. and if so, why? Is it merely because they’ve managed to earn the ire of some haunt owners, all of whom communicate with each other using private message boards online? Or do they simply travel around from haunt to haunt themselves? Is it possible they’re all a part of this mysterious “Blue Skeleton” group the gang keeps hearing about and pursuing, the roving haunt attraction that’s so underground and extreme, its location changes from Halloween to Halloween, and can only be found through private channels?

There are other moments where the group’s journey into the seedy underbelly of haunt attractions highlights their own naivete about what they’re playing with. At one point, the gang stops the RV for some beers before heading out to the evening’s attraction, and they encounter a haunt worker hanging out in the same area. They strike up an uneasy conversation, as the worker doesn’t appear to be all that thrilled to find them hanging out in what he clearly thinks is his camping spot, and things take a turn for the worse when Bobby starts talking about his fasciation with the haunts they’ve seen so far. He mentions how there are all these little kids working in the haunts, because out in the “backwoods” there are no rules and no one’s going to call CPS. “What you mean backwoods?” the haunt worker aggressively barks back, clearly unhappy with the label (in an earlier scene, Brandy challenges Bobby’s assumptions about the lack of laws and rules too – he doesn’t actually have any idea if what he’s saying is true).

As the haunted houses get darker and more death-oriented than your standard ghosts and ghouls (we go from aliens and evil clowns to rapists and mad scientists ripping people open on operating tables), Zach gets closer to locating the notorious Blue Skeleton, and eventually makes the connection he needs. This is when shit really gets weird. They’re given a location of some dive bar where they’re supposed to meet with a “Mr. Giggles” who will tell them how to make contact with the extreme haunt group, and this bar scene is worth the wait. The entire bar seems to exist for the sole purpose of creating a creepy atmosphere for thrill-seekers searching for extreme haunts; even on a weeknight every patron in the bar is dressed up as ghouls and behaving as if they always dress that way. A couple in rotted out clothes drags themselves slowly across the dance floor, some huge dude in a prison outfit and a face smeared with blood sucks on a brew, and two zombies sit at the bar counter smoking like it’s any other Tuesday night in the world. Everyone is in character from the moment the group walks through the front door until the moment they leave, and it’s bizarre. When the guys ask one of the zombies about Mr. Giggles, the huge prisoner-ghoul pulls up “Halloween Spooks” on the jukebox, and a demented clown – who eagle-eyed audience members may recognize as having been seen in previous haunts already – comes shuffling out onto the dance floor, bizarrely gyrating and wiggling towards their table. The look on Brandy’s face here says it all:

The guys are called outside to meet with the aforementioned Giggles, and Brandy makes the terrible decision to go to the bathroom. This is when the two zombie dudes decide to corner her in there, and she manages to push her way past them in time for Bobby and Mikey to question them. Brandy is shaken, and the guys decide they have to be more careful about leaving her alone, but sadly, they don’t decide that things have gotten out of hand and that perhaps they should quit their haunt journey while they’re ahead.

It may be too late for that, anyway; because the haunt now seems to be following them. Aside from being filmed one night while they sleep, they also find themselves surrounded by a whole host of costumed creepers a few nights later. A weird cow heart shows up in their RV fridge one morning, causing Mikey to barf into the sink clad in nothing but his hot pink boxer briefs – which is quite an image. On Halloween morning, a huge pumpkin is thrown against the side of the vehicle, with an invitation to New Orleans inside. When they throw open the blinds, they find five blue skeleton masks stuck under the windshield wipers. Mikey and Brandy are the most disturbed by this, but no one but Zach seems the least bit interested in pursuing the invitation. In spite of their obvious discomfort, all the pressure to be the one to say no way falls to Brandy, and she can’t bring herself to do it under the circumstances. She’s basically bullied into participating, and without her leading the opposition, no one else steps up to suggest they bow out. So on to New Orleans they go, blue masks in hand.

This is actually from the sequel but whatever

Halloween night in New Orleans is as insane as you might imagine, and in the chaos the man-child Jeff is the first one to pick a guy in a Blue Skeleton mask out of the crowd. Unfortunately, he thinks it’s Bobby, who is wearing the exact same blue hoodie as this guy, and he follows the dude into an alley like an idiot (sorry Jeff, but situational awareness is a skill you need to develop). Suddenly he sees someone else in the alley, and it’s the weird porcelain doll-girl from the very first haunt, along with a deranged rabbit we’ve already spied miles ago before shit got too real. Jeff turns around, and a whole host of deranged clowns and haunt workers from previous haunts are closing in on him. He gets the shit beat out of him, then he’s tied up and dragged off. And that’s the last we see of Jeff.

Oh, Jeff. These people are not your friends.

Back to the remaining four. Zach has called Jeff’s cell phone, which now has a message on it saying they need to meet someone at a random address out in the middle of nowhere if they want to see their friend again. Cut to the RV trumbling along in the darkness. Inside, the mood is grim. No one’s speaking, and everyone is some combination of pissed and terribly concerned. Mikey asks where in the hell they’re going, and Bobby stops the RV to yell at him about how he doesn’t know what to do, either. Any thought of this whole Blue Skeleton/extreme haunt thing being a game are gone now, and everyone’s starting to lose it a little. A car approaches them in the distance. It stops. For a moment nothing happens, but then Zach gets a text. Get out of the car now, it says, or your friend will die. Mikey is confused. This isn’t real, right? he asks Zach. I mean, let’s just go out there and get this over with, we know what this is. It’s the extreme experience they’ve been seeking, we the audience think, but even we are not sure. Is this a haunt, or are they all in danger? There’s no way to know.

And there’s not much time to think, because as soon as Mikey says he’s not scared because its not real anyway, Zach gets another text. You will be scared, it says. So…they can hear inside the RV now? I don’t have much nice to say about Zach about this point, but at least he takes it upon himself to be the one to get out of the RV and approach the waiting car, since this was all his idea in the first place. Shortly after he leaves, however, the RV is shaken and glass is broken; the remaining three fall to the ground and within seconds, several big skeleton-masked thugs break in and drag them all away. Oh dear.

There’s a bus ride with blaring music and everyone but Jeff – who really is never seen again – seated inside with black bags over their heads. Eventually the bus stops, and the three guys are taken outside, leaving Brandy in the bus alone with two skeleton-dudes. She’s weeping openly now, and begging not to be left alone. The guys shout and scream for her to come with them, but surprise surprise no one cares. I’ve done my fair share of reading about extreme haunt experiences, and when they are done properly, participants are given a safe word they can say at any time and their experience is immediately ended. But there are no safe words here, and it’s clear that whatever’s going to happen from here on out is definitely not going to be well-organized, safe, or possibly even legal. Thanks Zach.

To maintain the found footage conceit, Blue Skeleton is also filming the experience, and they give each person a camera to film everything that’s going on. That takes a big suspension of belief to accept, but I’m willing to allow it. We first follow Brandy into a creepy as hell dilapidated house where lights flash on and off, music blares out for a few seconds at a time before cutting off again, and doors slam at random. Zach appears to be locked in a darkened room with nothing but a blue light overhead, while Mikey and Bobby wander around in the dark looking for a way out. They are all IMMEDIATELY over it and asking if they can quit. No one answers. Eventually, they all end up getting the crap kicked out of them as their cameras cut out. It…doesn’t look good.

Cut to Brandy, unconscious and bloodied, being stuffed into the trunk of a car. She’s taken out to the middle of nowhere, where a deep hole has been dug into the ground. Simultaneously, the other three wake to find themselves locked into coffins. Cut back to Brandi, who’s laying in a wooden box. As the lid is closed on it, we see that there’s a camera inside. She comes to, but only after the lid has been closed, and we watch as she screams for help while hearing dirt being piled on top of the lid. They’re burying her alive. Likewise, we cut to the guys in their coffins, all banging and scratching, trying to get out. Then we cut to a shot of one of the Blue Skeleton guys, still wearing his mask. He looks directly into the camera, and it cuts to black. The end.

Some people are unhappy with this ending, calling it anticlimactic, but I think it’s perfect. To me it indicates they’re all going to be killed, and that’s the ending I still go with, even though a sequel was filmed that blows that theory all to hell (and as a sequel, it’s…not good). In my opinion everything points to this being the end of the road for the group, and the threats have seemed pretty real. So I choose to believe that’s how the story ends. It’s open to interpretation, however, which I think is what some don’t like about it. It also feels abrupt after so much skilled tension-building, but that doesn’t bother me either. Your mileage may vary, but overall I’d highly recommend this movie for something unusual that makes the most of the found-footage format in a unique way.

mareymercy.

Art, Horror, and Other Obsessions

Tag Archives: Horror

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