Rating: C+
Dir: Erik Kristopher Myers
Star: Seth Adam Kallick, Rachel Armiger, Reed DeLisle, Erik Kristopher Myers
As found footage goes, this is… okay. Which, coming from me, is as good as a pull-quote as any film-maker is going to get. I liked the fact that there are multiple levels here. However, it would be a stretch to say they all work equally. As a result, you get one-third which is intriguing, one-third which is functional, and one-third which is annoying. The top (or bottom? Not sure how this works) layer is formed by a box of video-tapes, discovered in the basement of a house by its new owners. This contains footage from a student project, shot by Sophia Crane (Armiger) and her pal, Feldman (DeLisle).
They were documenting a local urban legend, known as Peeping Tom, among other names. If you go to a local railway tunnel, and stare into it without blinking for a full hour, Tom will appear. The problem is, it’s impossible to unsee him, and every time you blink thereafter, he’ll get closer, eventually killing you. [Fans of Doctor Who will likely be going, “Hang on…” about now, due to the similarities between this concept and the show’s Weeping Angels] The tapes make their way into the hands of wannabe film-maker, Gavin York (Kallick). He both wants to investigate what happened – there’s no trace of Sophia or Feldman – and package up the footage into a viral found footage sensation. Level #3: a documentary crew is following York in his efforts.
I’ll give Myers (who plays the director of the documentary himself) credit for trying to do something different in the genre, and also for keeping all his cameras in a stable, roughly horizontal position. However, I would rather have simply followed the progress of the original film-makers. The footage they “shot” – and we’ll take air quotes as read for the rest of this, as appropriate – is spooky and rather convincing. As things progress, you will see them slowly become more convinced of the reality of the legend. This is considerably more entertaining than watching York be, frankly, a bit of a dick. Though I was amused by a cameo from Eduardo Sánchez, director of a certain genre mainstay, telling Gavin not to pretend his film is real.
It’s especially ironic, since everyone to whom he tries to pitch his film is highly suspicious that the alleged reality is thoroughly staged. Otherwise, watching a wedding photographer attempt to parlay a box of video-cassettes into the Next Big Thing, isn’t as interesting as the film seems to think. I kept finding myself having to resist the urge to fast-forward his scenes, and get back to what Crane and Feldman were experiencing. Myers has done a solid job of crafting their pseudo-lore, from the way the pair trigger the appearance of Peeping Tom, through to fake interviews with real people like Matt Lake, author of the Weird _____ series of books. I would have preferred simply ninety minutes of that: sometimes, less is indeed more.