Bloomer

I bumped into this efficient little film on Tubi. It's a found footage horror in which a young filmmaking couple, with the woman's brother acting as cameraman, illegally explore a trail in the woods, ostensibly to interview a hermit accused of killing his family. The hermit says bigfoot did it. Is the hermit a killer? Or was it bigfoot? Or both?

The crux of the film is the two solid performances by Tatum Bates and Andrew Thomas as the couple. They sell their non-actorly performances and hit all the right found footage notes at different moments. They are real as a couple, as researchers, as filmmakers, as people having minor disagreements. Supporting players are definitely not as good, or not directed as well. A menacing guy who sort of threatens to help them is considerably overshooting. And I didn't think the hermit character was able to pull off the fake documentary type of performance.

The story has a good red herring with the hermit. You know bigfoot's real, you glimpse him in the gee-you-up opening scenes, but the hermit may or may not also be a killer. Little Blair-Witch-like developments keep the story evolving. Can we make this hike? Can we find this guy? Do we trust this stranger?

There are a few weak points. The scenery rarely changes; I guess it's all filmed in one area, and this subtracts from a visual sense that we're getting deeper and wilder in the woods. The characters always look too well-scrubbed, even after twelve mile hikes or with blood on them. And while non-diegetic music is used (kind of controversial in this genre) it's mixed so low it might as well not be.

However, with strong core performances, good story development and excellent late escalation, including some discreet gore, this is ultimately a satisfying film. There are a few killer jump scares, too.

From the title alone, I thought Zombeez might be in wake-of-Sharknado territory. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a much lower key film focused on cuteness, charm, characterisation and good-naturedness.

Director Elisia Marie plays Jess Johnson, beekepeer's daughter and the purple-haired coroner of an extraordinarily quiet town in Florida. (If the budget, and circumstances of filming - COVID - are in evidence anywhere, it's in the absence of extras.) When bees start dying for no reason, Jess's awkward-historied ex, now an entomologist, is called in to work the case.

Marie's performance is almost slowed-down screwball comedy. When the handful of town authority figures start joining her in the investigation, it provokes a bunch of amusing tensions amongst them. Ultimately they get the help of Sheriff Taylor (Teance Blackburn), a less-scary-Grace-Zabriskie-like-woman who breaks out a flamethrower to defend herself from bee harassment in her first scene.

The character bits for random bee victims, like the lady in the car telling her boyfriend, 'If I say no, it means no. If I move my hand like this, it means no,' are good. I wished there were more of them.

The effects are, again, cute. There's a hint of Birdemic in the planes of CGI bees seen zooming after people from behind, but unlike in Birdemi, the effects here are always purposeful. Scenes of the entire (small!) cast variously firing guns and flamethrowers at, and swinging baseball bats at, and even kung-fuing, mutant bees out of the air, are pleasingly ridiculous.

The "small town solving its problems with a bit of cooperation and science" theme suits the scale of the film, and gives it a friendlier feel than a lot of headache-inducing recent low-budget monster films. There are no overbearing characters, there's no screaming, no great loudness or deliberate moments of outrage. The pace is there, but leisurely. The film's probably still a little long at one hour forty-five, but I enjoyed the whole thing. It was a nice surprise.