Rating: D+
Dir: Erik Knight
Star: Deacon Ledges, Alyson King, David Jite, James Warnock
This feature film is certainly an oddity. Made for a cost of five thousand dollars, over the decade since Knight uploaded it to his YouTube channel, it has been watched over 4.3 million times. You think that level of engagement might have encouraged him to try again. No. It’s Knight’s only credit on the IMDb, as a writer, director, editor or producer. Not even a short. I guess he got the bug out of his system, and that was it. He cheerfully admits, “In all honesty, we didn’t know the first thing about film-making, editing, special effects, etc. So, we hit the internet pavement and watched a shit-load of tuts on You Tube and buried ourselves in Dummy books.”
To be perfectly blunt, you can tell. On the one hand, elements of this clearly demonstrate the bargain basement nature – as always, the inconsistent audio is a clear giveaway. The script is clichéd and banal: if you’ve seen one “haunted house” film, then you’ve seen this, and things end is such an underwhelming way, it feels either the money or the makers’ interest suddenly ran out. But I’ve seen far worse, especially for debuts made with such limited resources. Knight says he was driven by “the belief that we could make a feature film without knowing a damn thing about film-making.” Mission accomplished I’d say, to the point where it feels a pity he didn’t put into practice what was learned here. There is potential.
Outside the first ten minutes, it unfolds almost entirely in one location. The house where, six months ago, a family of five were murdered, with a 10-year-old girl, Jessica, the only survivor. Now, TV journalist Sevin Michaels (Ledges) and his crew are there to investigate. Inevitably, strange things take place, with Melanie Beck (King) proving the most sensitive. This, naturally, does not stop crew assholes Mark and Steve from going back to the house with their lady friends for the world’s least convincing party. There’s also a cop, Detective Strieber (Warnock), though what purpose he serves is unclear. And just when Sevin finds someone who can explain the situation… he whizzes back to the house, instead of hanging around to find out.
Yeah, it’s safe to say the script here is the absolute worst element, feeling as if they made things up as they went along, then tore out the last fifteen pages anyway. Some of the performances, in particular the crew assholes, would give a mahogany bookcase a run for its money. But Knight generally knows where to point the camera, and there are occasions when the film manages to punch above its weight. The old “spider walking” thing, may be trusted and true, but that doesn’t stop it from being effectively used here. This is more or less what you would expect from someone whose enthusiasm vastly outpaces their experience. Yet I’m not sure I could honestly say I would do any better.