Devil's Backbone, Texas is an aggravating attempt at a meta-mockumentary. It's about a filmmaker named Jake Wade Wall - his real name, as this film attempts to blur the lines between reality and fiction. His now deceased father Bert was into some pretty crazy shit out on his 20,000 acre ranch (is that way too big? This city boy doesn't know. 2,000 maybe?). The ranch was out in a region of Texas known as the Devil's Backbone, named as such for the mountain range that juts out of nowhere. Bert went kind of crazy up there towards the end of his life... tearing up his own house, making insanely gory artwork, and insisting there are ghosts on the property. Because of Bert's erratic behavior (as well as the fact that he was kind of a dick), Jake hasn't been out to the ranch for 20 years. Now, several years after Bert's death, Jake wants to make peace (and a movie!) by bringing Bert's ashes out to the property and having an "ashes ceremony." Jake also wants to learn a little more about his father - and perhaps find out what caused him to go crazy. But what if Bert's paranormal rants weren't just delusions, but were based in reality? Wouldn't that make a good movie?
It doesn't. But Jake thinks it probably would, so he brings along an annoying group of friends and a nameless, faceless cameraman to help him investigate the property and make a little documentary in the process. But, believe it or not, things do not go as planned.
The main thing that bugged me about Devil's Backbone, Texas is that it doesn't stick to the gimmick of the documentary/found footage style. I mean, it's hard to go into details without totally spoiling the thing, but the documentary that is presented here has good editing, lots of music, and interviews with historians and what not. There's just no way this would happen, considering what happens in the film. It's sort of on the opposite end of the credibility spectrum as The Tunnel. That film had survivors of a horrific incident looking back at it - so the editing/interviews made sense. But when it went to the "real" footage it that it stayed untouched, giving it a good found footage feel. Here, there's just no reason for the pretend documentary to exist. It presented a hurdle for me that just made impossible to enjoy.
It was also tough to enjoy the characters. They are all pretty annoying, and we spend way too much time just eavesdropping on them yelling at each other about what they should do next. How about just SHOWING us? Their planning sessions are not exciting, and highlight the worst traits of each character. (Jake is dramatic and overemotional, one of the friends is too sensitive, one is a bossy-mossy.)
The one thing I did like about the film was the meta-ness of the whole endeavor. I didn't like it enough to do any actual research, but I pretty much bought that the people in the film were family, and their dad Bert did indeed show up on "Unsolved Mysteries" once upon a time to talk about his experiences on the haunted ranch. (He did write a book about it too.) Learning about Bert and the set-up for the whole thing are the most engaging and well done parts of the film. It's no coincidence that they are the most "documentary-like" parts as well. Once Jake and the crew gets to the ranch and start exploring, the film becomes much less interesting and feels more like a poorly done found footager than a slick faux-doc.
Although I did learn that there were German POW camps in the US with thousands of prisoners in them during World War II. Apparently they'd be captured in Europe and sent to the US by boat - sometimes up to 30,000 a month. Crazy. So there's something else I learned from watching horror movies. Thanks, Devil's Backbone, Texas!
Horror-wise? There isn't all that much to sink your teeth into. Not many deaths or gore to speak of, and while there are some attempts at tension none of it really works. Again, when they use the found footage style but put music over it, the whole effect is just kind of ruined. They do show a whole horde of daddy long legs in Bert's decrepit house - that was legitimately creepy. And the last five minutes has some quality chaos in the climactic chase scene.
But that's not enough to save Devil's Backbone, Texas. Overall, it's pretty boring and not particularly well done. Oh, and the very, very ending fucking sucks.
I would not recommend this film.
No comments:
Post a Comment