December 3rd, 2015 - The Cutting Room (2015)

The Cutting Room starts off with a very intense credit sequence: black screen with freaky old-timey music, intercut with torture sounds and screaming, and then the visual of a young woman being chained to a table. But after that, the film just sort of twiddles its thumbs for an hour, leading up to a not very rewarding climax. Oh, and it's found footage! So it's another film to add to the ever expanding pile of crappy found footage films, I guess.

November 17th, 2015 - The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)

Sorry really old people... you're inherently frightening. Particularly when you're all frail and fighting off a disease, as the titular Deborah Logan is here. (And I say this as (a) someone who will hopefully get the chance to be old and decrepit one day, and (b) had a close family member die of Alzheimer's. It's a shitty, shitty disease that this film portrays respectfully enough.) And maybe "inherently scary" isn't the right phrasing. It's one of those things where you're not scared of the thing, you're scared of becoming the thing. And if things go well (i.e. you don't die young) you will become it. So there's an extra layer of... hopeful inevitability there? I don't sit there watching Suburban Sasquatch worrying that I'll become bigfoot, you know?

Anyways, The Taking of Deborah Logan is a very effective mockumentary/found-footage jam, where a grad student is making a film for her thesis statement. The gist of it is something about the effects of Alzheimer's not only on the person suffering from the disease, but also on those close to them. Here, you've got Deborah rapidly deteriorating from the disease, while her daughter Sarah tries to take care of her. In her lucid moments, Deborah is not too keen on having a film crew around, but Sarah insists that they need the money to keep the house (as well as the assistance with the medical bills).

October 28th, 2015 - Alien Valley (2012)

I was pleasantly surprised by Alien Valley. I'm not sure if it was because of low expectations after being disappointed by Area 51, or if it was how the filmmakers craftily used the blueprints of my "beloved" found footage ghost hunting genre and super-imposed it on an alien flick. Or, just maybe, they did an okay job generating scares and had a unique story to tell. What a novel idea! Whatever the reason, I had a pretty good time with it.

Anyways, it's about a Ghost Adventures-esque show called "Paranormal Mysteries." They go around investigating just about anything "paranormal." But there's not a lot genuine concern amongst them about solving any actual mysteries - it's more about getting ratings than actually discovering anything. (Say what you will about for real ghost hunting shows - the folks on them are nerdy enough that it seems like at least a part of them goes into it with good intentions.) Their producer is actually a pretty big asshole about it, and is clearly most concerned about getting good shots of his attractive cast reacting to rigged scares.

October 18th, 2015 - Evidence of a Haunting (2010)

While it kind of looks like it's going to be your standard ghost hunting found footager, Evidence of a Haunting has a couple of interesting things going for it. (At first, at least.) At the very outset, there's this text:

October 14th, 2015 - Unfriended (2014)

I don't want to out myself as a lame old man, but I don't have Facebook. So I was a little concerned about not understanding what was going on in Unfriended - the entire film unfolds on a laptop screen, mostly via Facebook and Skype. The film is able to do some interesting things with the set-up, and the story is much more fleshed out than you think it would be when you hear it consists entirely of a half-dozen kids talking on Skype. But you learn enough through side conversations, web browsing, and youtube videos that it's as easy to follow as a traditional narrative.

So for the first half of the film, Unfriended is pretty effective and occasionally creepy, as some sort of malicious, computer controlling spirit has it out for our teenaged friends. But it doesn't put that set-up to good use, as the film eventually devolves into a half hour of kids screaming at the camera. I think the idea is screaming/noisy = tense/scary, but it just doesn't work.

October 10th, 2015 - Creep (2014)

Creep is a breath of fresh air as far as found footage horror films go. It's not dependent on a dilapidated building, or bumps in the night, or people getting dragged away from the camera by an unseen force. Instead, Creep focuses on the relationship between cameraman Aaron and his employer for a day (by virtue of a Craigslist ad) Josef. They are the only two people in the film, aside from some disembodied voices on the phone. And as you may have guessed, one of them is indeed a creep.

Aaron heads up to Josef's cabin to shoot a days worth of footage. Josef has terminal cancer and a pregnant wife, and has been inspired by the Michael Keaton movie My Life to make a video for his unborn child. Josef seems like kind of a weird dude. He invites Aaron to film him in the bath tub and is prone to hiding and jump-scaring Aaron (and by extension, us) at random times. But Aaron needs the money and probably feels a little sympathy for him. And the two even seem to have an okay time at some points throughout the day. But as the time comes for things to wrap up, things get weirder - and we make our way into full-fledged horror movie territory.

September 23rd, 2015 - Archivo 253 (2015)

Archivo 253 pros:
- Good use of hair to be disturbing
- In Spanish, so you can feel a little more cultured (if you don't already speak Spanish, I guess)

Archivo 253 cons:
- Everything else. It turns out Mexico can produce just as bland and boring of a ghost hunting movie as we can here in the good old USA.

I shouldn't really even have to tell you what it's about; it's pretty generic as far as these things go. I guess there's a little twist in that these four are amateurs and aren't filming it for a reality show... they're just doing it for the kicks, man! Of course, they end up paying for said kicks with their lives (not a spoiler - it's one of those where they tell you right at the beginning that they were never found).

September 6th, 2015 - Hollows Grove (2014)

Found Footage is amongst the least-respected of all horror sub-genres, and the ghost hunting film is probably a big reason for that. I mean, all you really need to make a crummy ghost hunting film is a camera and access to an old, shitty building. A solid concept and good filmmaking skills are usually optional. It's been done to death, and generally not with the best results. As I approach a full year on this movie-a-day project and I'm looking back at what I've watched, of the (many) ghost hunting movies I've seen, I can't think of one that I could enthusiastically recommend. And maybe only one or two that I'd shrug my shoulders at. Why do I keep watching these things?

Anyways, Hollows Grove is pretty good as far as these types of things go. It's average at best for a "normal" movie, but it's pretty easily in the upper echelon of FF ghost hunter flicks. So if you're into that sort of thing, or you're like me and just feel strangely compelled to watch whatever you can, it's worth checking out.

September 2nd, 2015 - Area 51 (2015)

As an ardent supporter/apologist for the Paranormal Activity franchise, I was very curious to see what writer/director Oren Peli would do next. Rumors of a follow-up started circulating in 2009 - like Paranormal Activity, but with aliens? Sounds iffy, but I knew it would be something I'd watch when I got the chance. But the film just kept getting delayed again and again... and not because the CIA got involved saying the it gave away too many dastardly government secrets (although that would have been a good internet rumor to start, in my opinion). It sounds like the delay was more due to "this movie sucks, we need rewrites and reshoots." So after about six years (production started in Fall of 2009, rewrites in 2011, reshoots in 2013), Area 51 got a limited release in the Spring of 2015. And it just recently popped up on Netflix and Amazon Prime, where I assume a lot of folks like myself who have been not-very-anxiously awaiting the film will check it out.

Like most films that get delayed for long periods of time for rewrites/reshoots, Area 51 just isn't all that good. You kind of know you're in trouble right away, as our three main characters are all pretty bland. They aren't super annoying, but they aren't particularly likable either. They are introduced at a party, where I guess we're supposed to be charmed by their drunken antics, but ultimately you are just kind of biding your time until they get to the alien stuff. Which actually comes about rather quickly. Group leader Reid disappears from the party shortly after being seen creepily standing outside and staring off into space. Darrin and Ben (the other two guys) assume he just went home with some lady, but as they (probably drunk) drive home they almost hit a blank-faced Reid standing in the middle of the street.

July 25th, 2015 - Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes (2012)

For whatever reason, found footage bigfoot is a tough one to nail. I mean, I'm partial to bigfoot movies, but something about the big fella just hasn't really lended itself well to the found footage genre thus far. The ones I've liked are generally either more action-oriented (Exists) or maybe not even bigfoot movies at all (Willow Creek). I'm always hoping to get more of a creeping-terror type bigfoot found footager - while the "noises outside the cabin" are always a good way to build some tension, from there things usually just devolve into a blurry mess of first-person chase scenes. Unfortunately, Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes doesn't really deliver anything new. It's not terrible, but it's not all that good either. If you are a fan of bigfoot and found footage (as I am), it's passable. But it's certainly not going to win over any haters of either genre.

July 20th, 2015 - The Conspiracy (2012)

I'm a pretty paranoid person in general. But I've never been a conspiracy nut. While do I think there are probably a lot of evil, powerful people out there, I don't really trust in the competence of the machine to pull off any of the Big Time Conspiracies. No doubt there's some shady stuff going on. But I just kind of feel like I have to roll with the punches... cueing Bruce Hornsby... that's just the way it is.

The Conspiracy starts out as a standard mockumentary about a guy who doesn't roll with those punches. Terrance has an apartment full of newspaper clippings, and has a detailed theory connecting the evils of the powers that be to many major catastrophic events throughout history, from the sinking Lusitania to 9/11. Terrance is the kind of guy that feels obligated to spread "the truth" and he sets up shop on street corners or in parks to yell at people through a megaphone while they are on their lunch breaks. Filmmakers Aaron and Jim approach him from a distance - they don't outright mock him, but they occasionally shoot questioning glances at each other and the camera. The doc is going well, until one day when Terrance mysteriously vanishes.

July 16th, 2015 - The Houses October Built (2014)

I've never been a big haunted house/haunted hayride guy. I was too scared as a kid, and now I really just don't care enough to get off my ass in October and go make it happen. I've got movies to watch! But seriously, I always had the impression that a lot of these are just a little too jump scare-y for my tastes. When you add crowds of people (truly the most frightening thing of all) to the mix, I always just end up taking a pass.

And the team starring in the okayish mocumentary/found footage The Houses October Built seem to think that most haunted attractions ("haunts") are pretty lame too. So they are going to go on a road trip to find the scariest, craziest, most extreme haunt out there. But of course, since it's a horror movie, they find one that is maybe a little too extreme, and things don't go as planned.

June 11th, 2015 - The Den (2013)

Abbreviated Entry...

May 14th, 2015 - Devil's Backbone, Texas (2015)

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.

May 9th, 2015 - The Mirror (2014)

The Mirror is a pretty good found-footage film that is elevated from being just average by a couple of things. You get some pretty decent, realistic performances by the three main characters (all flatmates - it's British, so maybe I'm predisposed to liking it), but mainly? It's a found footage film that doesn't take place in a haunted house/abandoned asylum or some other creepy location (the woods, caves, catacombs, whatever). It takes place in an apartment (or "flat," if you will), but unlike Apartment 143 or the Paranormal Activity series, it's not a previously haunted place that's being investigated. Your getting into these folk's lives *before* the shit goes down, so while it's a little slow at times, you get a good feel for the calm before the storm. And in this case, the storm takes the shape of, um... a haunted mirror.

Before you start laughing - it's actually treated pretty seriously. (And looking into it a bit, there are quite a few films about haunted mirrors... not sure if it's quite a sub genre, but still.) Basically, the found footage aspect is that these three flatmates (Matt, his girlfriend Jemma, and his friend Steve) are planning to win $1,000,000 in the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge - a real contest run by the James Randi Educational Foundation. Their plan is to provide video proof of the paranormal after they purchase a haunted mirror from an eBay-ish seller online. (The real contest would not accept video-only proof, but whatever.) They've done their research and think they have the real deal - they've got some fancy-ass cameras to catch the haunted mirror in action (one static camera that just sits facing the mirror, a nice handheld, and a go-pro). And of course, since this is a horror movie, the mirror *is* actually haunted, some scary shit goes down, and things spiral out of control.

April 25th, 2105 - 100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck (2012)

100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck is an Asylum-produced ghost hunting film. It's not directly ripping off any particular movie, as the infamous production company is wont to do (Transmorphers, Terminators). But that doesn't mean it's original. I mean, the ghost-hunting/found footage genre has a pretty well-established set of conventions (or more accurately - there just isn't all that much you can do in the confines of that set-up), and 100 Ghost Street doesn't stray far from the formula. Still, despite having a near total lack of story, it's decently-executed, which is high praise for an Asylum flick.

Rather than being boring with too much padding, in a way the action here *is* the padding - there's just too much of it. It's loud and effective at times, but eventually you just kind of get numb to all of the screaming/chasing/shaky-cam. A good balance is hard to pull off in a found footage film - you at least want a little calm before the storm. I mean, it's better to err on the side of too much action, but ideally there would be a little better balance. And the action happens early and often - Ghost Street probably sets some kind of record for the shortest amount of elapsed time until someone getting dragged away from the camera in that "classic" found footage shot (about 90 seconds). So at least it gets that requirement out of the way early.

April 4th, 2015 - Exists (2014)

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.

April 2nd, 2015 - The St. Francisville Experiment (2000)

The St. Francisville Experiment is not very good. Like, at all. I wanted to be really, really hard on it for being such a startlingly poor ghost-hunting movie, but then at the very end of the credits I noticed the date it was made. 1999 - released in 2000. So when I realized it was in all likelihood made as a knee-jerk reaction to The Blair Witch Project, I had to cut it a little slack. I mean, it still sucks, but at that point people hadn't really figured out just what exactly it was that made the whole found footage genre work. If The St. Francisville Experiment was released now, it would be inexcusable. But as it is, it's just a really bad, old Blair Witch knock off.

I mean, maybe my expectations were just too high. I mean, who could blame me for getting excited, after seeing this fine promotional art courtesy of Amazon Prime:

March 14th, 2015 - The Tunnel (2011)

The Tunnel is a pretty decent found footage/mockumentary flick. Its setting (the tunnels underneath Sydney, Australia) and its pretty strict adherence to a documentary style make it unique enough to stand out from the rest of the found footage pack.

It's about a news team who goes into the tunnels following what they think is a government cover up. Several years prior, government officials made some promises about refining the giant reservoirs of underground water sitting in the abandoned tunnels, and using it during a long drought. But the project never materialized, and reporter Natasha Warner wants to figure out why. There have long been rumors (denied by the government) that a community of homeless people are living down there. So Natasha and her crew of three (camera man, sound man, and her producer) grab their equipment, break into the tunnels, and start snooping around. And of course, things don't go as planned, and they encounter something much worse than they could have ever expected. The crew only have a limited amount of battery power (light) left, and the maps they have aren't making a lot of sense anymore...

February 24th, 2015 - Dark Vision (2015)

I like watching found footage movies on my iPad. There is a certain immediacy/intimacy when watching them on a tablet... like you're just reviewing footage rather than sitting back in a comfy chair to watch a film. It sort of enhances the experience for me.

Boring story short, I had to watch today's movie on the iPad. So I cruised through my options on the amazon app, and stopped on Dark Vision. Not just one, but *five* teams of paranormal investigators compete to win their own show in the "Dark Vision Competition!" I could be getting five crappy ghost hunting movies for the price of one! (Against my better judgement, I love the damned things.) Well, the synopsis is pretty misleading - we only follow around one team as they investigate the basement/cave-like tunnels beneath "one of Britain's most haunted locations." The other four teams are only hinted at using text onscreen, and have next-to-nothing to do with the story. But I was still pleasantly surprised with Dark Vision - it's a pretty entertaining film that is moderately successful as a horror film, and probably even more successful as a comedy.