Found Footage Fave: Leaving D.C.

Featured

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.

oh hai Mark

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.

It’s a lovely house though

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.

He may have made a mistake, y’all.

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 NOT the face of romance

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.

This doesn’t look good Mark

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.

Gun go bang-bang yippee!

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.

the group watching Mark’s videos

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.

Time to move, Mark

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.

It’s baaaaack

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.

No, you’re not miserable, I’M miserable

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.

I wonder why no one ever visits?

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.