Rating: D
Dir: Dylan Bruvold
Star: Tykara Gramm, Melissa Hilde, Robert Parma, Brian Rivard
Given my general aversion to found footage, there are not many days where I find myself watching two such features. They are an interesting contrast. The earlier Sorgoi Prakov did feel, at least, as if it were trying to do something slightly different with the medium. Not particularly successfully, in the final analysis, yet I could respect the attempt. This, unfortunately, is one of those cases where found footage becomes an excuse for the shortcomings of the production. Crappy audio? Boring cinematography? Acting which feels like a surrealist attempt to redefine the word? Events happening in such a way you can’t really be sure what is going on? What do you expect, it’s found footage!
The scenario is what pulled me in. All of the emergency services have gone on strike, which is a somewhat more imaginative way to deal with the problem than “No signal.” Three housemates initially welcome the opportunity to party without worrying about the cops showing up and telling them to calm down. Though the moderately energetic game of beer pong, which follows, would hardly seem likely to draw the wrath of the authorities, unless they are living in a particularly fundamentalist Mormon subdivision. Pleasure at the possibilities in this scenario turns to concern, when a masked figure (Rivard) starts to show up on the house’s security cameras (top). He is apparently intent on exercising his new-found freedom from control, in a considerably different direction.
All this unspools in a mix of those security cameras, and hand-held phone footage. The latter makes as much sense as it usually does, i.e. very little. If an intruder was trying to break into your house, the very last thing on my mind would be whipping out my Samsung Galaxy and recording the event. Because such an event is going to end in somebody’s death: if it’s theirs, I don’t want video evidence; if it’s mine, I am not exactly going to be using the footage at my memorial event. While this material was all supposedly found after the crimes, the film actually ends in stalkerish footage – I guess, taken by the killer – from two days before any of this started, whose presence makes no sense.
I knew I was in trouble from the early scene, in the house’s living-room, where the camera could hardly be any further from the trio, as they chatted on the sofa. “What?” I yelled repeatedly at the screen, but regrettably, the camera refused to move closer so I could hear the dialogue properly. However, I eventually realized that nothing anyone said was of particular importance – a trend which continued for the rest of the movie. The expected kills eventually showed up, and the sole bit of invention was a novel use of a lawnmower. This was presumably a homage to Peter Jackson and Braindead, though the amount of blood involved here could have come from a single ketchup packet. Some footage should probably not be found.
[The film can be watched on YouTube]