Murder Death Koreatown
In the past years, found-footage and mockumentary movies have been running low in numbers and popularity, and I'd wish for some kind of unlikely resurgence. With the slim amount of information we have available about "Murder Death Koreatown" , it's hard not to be a little excited for it, being a found-footage flick and all. Obviously, it's a fictitious movie, and a familiar marketing campaign choice, but cool nonetheless. It also seems to have majorly one guy under probably what's most of the crew positions, which I deem to be a bonus point.
This is one ordinary man's documentary crew on a spiraling quest to solve a murder that took place in his house complex. A woman has killed her husband, seeming inconsistencies have been seen around the crime scene, and our main character makes himself the unprepared civilian detective, trying to solve a mystery of maddening proportions. It's okay, it's enjoyable enough, provided you're into stuff served in this style. Our documentarian is the modern average Joe, a little hard to like at times, but got used to him, as the movie does speak to the viewer like a YouTube video, it feels like the kind, which allows for lower production qualities and generally smaller, mostly shorter, more personal projects to have a great and different effect than a, say, 90 minute movie. That's one of the characteristics that this film has going for it. It's also effective in regards of realism that it very likely has friends, relatives and non actor persons from their respective actual lives playing all the supporting characters. An absolute stand out for me was the homeless man whom the documentarian gets acquinted with, he added not only to the realism, but also worked with the plot. The more underwhelming flaw has to do with the plot as well, and it's in how the whole journey ends, kinda dropping ball on finishing the idea and opting for a more simplified outcome. There was a point the film tried to make, and somewhat managed, but to little satisfaction. Some dialogue jumped out as too stiff a little, some bits of acting were shadier than others, but it never gets bad-bad. As far as technical value goes, it is indeed a YouTube level production, possibly entirely filmed with a phone, but that's part of the magic in this genre of horror.
Somehow, I got expectations a little higher than this, but it turned out to be a decent supplement for the lack of f-footage horror movies on my plate. If you dig them, try giving this one a chance. My rating: 5/10.
