It's kind of fitting that I watched Exists just a couple days after The St. Francisville Experiment. St. Francisville was a Blair Witch Project knock-off, and Exists finds one of the Blair Witch creators (Eduardo Sanchez) going back to the found footage well 15 years after he, uh, founded it. It seems like he's done some found footage shorts (VHS 2) and web series in the interim, but I think this is his first full-length found footage feature since 1999. And it's as good as you could reasonably expect for a FF Bigfoot movie. Nothing is really going to surprise you too much, but there's enough quality action that it's well worth a watch.
Exists just pretty much jumps right into it. There isn't as much of a setup as you usually get for these sort of things. Five youngsters (despite making me sound like an old man, I hesitate to say kids - they seem to be in their early 20s) are headed out to a cabin in the woods. You are never really given a reason to like or dislike them... presumably you don't want them to die because they are the leads. Or at least blank slates, for you to project onto. Regardless, they aren't well defined as characters, and are pretty much just treated as Bigfoot bait by the script. And that's okay - Exists is a thrill-ride type movie, and well-rounded, deep characters just aren't necessary for what the movie ultimately wants to do.
The cabin they are heading out to belongs to the uncle of the two brother characters - the uncle has basically abandoned it and warned people about going there due to the Bigfoot activity (despite an early onscreen warning that most Bigfoot experts agree that they are only violent when provoked). But the brothers are all like "whatever bro." They don't tell their other three friends anything and have stolen the keys to the cabin - so no one knows they are headed there! On drive up, they hit *something* with their car - they see the blood, hear the thump, but that's it. So it's an uneasy start to the vacation. And, one guy is a video junkie, and (of course) wants to document everything. If he gets some Bigfoot footage, even better! Little does he know how much video he'll get - unfortunately it will be of Bigfoot slaughtering him and his friends. Sad.
And the shit hits the fan pretty much right away. Exists wisely does away with the typical 40+ minute introduction/set-up (i.e. the boring part) - we all know how these sort of things work so why dilly dally? Here, after a brief intro to the cabin, we get one sequence of camera setup and frolicking in the woods - I'd guess we're less than 20 minutes in when we get our first encounter.
The Bigfoot stuff is solid, and it escalates at a good pace throughout the film. You start with creepy vocalizations and little glimpses here and there, and by the end of the film you are seeing him up close and personal. And despite the confines of the cabin/woods setting, the attack scenes are surprisingly varied - either Bigfoot is throwing stuff, trying to break into the cabin, or chasing them through the woods... it's a pretty short film (80 minutes with credits), and there's enough variety that things never get dull.
Exists is pretty nicely shot as well. The attacks are well-orchestrated cinematically but still feel chaotic. There isn't an awful lot of gore though (hardly any, that I recall) - the film gets its kicks from the excitement and intensity of the attack scenes, and never really goes for anything gory. (Interestingly, this actually kind of plays into Bigfoot as a character as well.)
Found-footage wise, it mostly works. The big issue is the constant filming - there is never really a good reason for them to continue filming while they are all being killed. But by this point in the found footage game, I'm guessing you've either gotten over that pet peeve or stopped watching FF all together. A lot of the action early on is filmed with GoPro cameras - and while there is definitely a great deal of shakiness, I never got motion-sickness or headachy. And it's definitely well-directed - while there are certainly some conveniently-framed shots, they are well-hidden at first, and the camerawork seems mostly natural.
My biggest gripe? Lots of "bro"-ness. And not at a character level - more like the guy's default reaction to danger is to just yell "bro" over and over again. It's kind of like when you're talking to someone and you notice they say "like" all of the time. After a while, it's all you can hear. It just gets a little annoying.
Overall, Exists is much more of the "roller coaster ride" type movie that anything that was made to instill fear or dread. It's an exciting film, and definitely worth it if you're a FF or Bigfoot fan. (I didn't mention it before, but Bigfoot looks pretty damned awesome here.) And those are both oft-maligned genres, so if you get anything that even approaches decent, it's got to be considered a win. And Exists is better than decent. It's pretty good!
I would recommend this film.
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