begob

A woman rushes home to help her orphan brother after he zones out while showing her a strange video during an online call.

Mockumentary with a found footage element. This started out intelligent, shaping up as an exploration of people's tendency to dissociate: when fear of monsters under the bed, perhaps a little daydreaming, or more particularly religious faith, grow into a pathological disconnect from reality. From a certain angle, that tendency is the foundation of all our problems, so it's a big issue.

We start off with images of bigfoot and Nessie, which are actually used in studies to identify that pathological tendency. Then face-to-face footage of the brother, obviously suffering psychological problems, and the sister's "been-there-done-that" response. But mixed in with this are the fire & brimstone broadcasts of a charismatic preacher. Interesting set up.

But the chopping and changing never settles down, and I realised the film-makers had their own tendency: edit edit edit. So it's cut to hand-held cam. Then cut to broadcast cam, then to security cam, to dashboard cam, to on-screen texts, and on and on. In the middle of this they cut to interview cam, revealing that the characters we care about all survived to tell the tale - the only thing left on the cutting floor was any sense of jeopardy.

Found footage should have a simple format: wind up the story through exposition in the first 20 minutes, then let it all unwind in the next 60 according to its own logic, allowing the audience to fill in the blanks. If the story and characters are integrated, there's no need for fancy stuff. Heck, you can even cut out the music.

The performances are OK, and the production values are pretty good. But it didn't come close to good story-telling, taking all its spookiness from ominous music.

Overall: Stop trying to find hidden depths in found footage. Blair Witch is as good as it gets - the secret is the right story with the right characters.

I share the criticisms already made by other reviewers, so won't repeat. Such horrible direction and editing, so many implausibilities.

The reason I watched is because the creators of Castle Rock (2018) said in interview that the amazing Queen episode in that series was inspired by this story. I now realise they weren't talking about the movie.

The trigger event is held back for 50 mins, the exact halfway point of the runtime, even though the audience has been predicting it from about 30 seconds in. The father screams to the heavens ... and I burst out laughing. That's how bad it is.

Just ... no.

Yearning for her long-lost youtube ghost-hunting sister, a woman picks up the trail again when fresh video evidence is delivered to her doorstep by a disturbed man.

The first thing to note is the deliberate switching of frames that goes on in the first half of the movie. The opening is dominated by a fast-edit documentary on the backstory, delivered in a square aspect ratio - but even in that the director is careful to use window frames to suggest a deeper level of mystery somewhere out there. Then the screen broadens for the straight 3rd person narrative as we get to know the protagonist. Then it narrows again with the introduction of the fresh video evidence, but viewed on a TV screen - so a frame within a frame. And, as usual in occult movies, we get the 'research' phase, which brings in computer screens and microfiche readers - yet more frames.

The purpose of all this? I guess it allows the director to control the distance of the audience, sort of like zooming in and out. Certainly I felt more comfortable with the wide screen, like I was actually getting the full picture, whereas the narrow screen made me feel that secrets were being held back.

I'm not sure the frame-switching mattered all that much, given that the story is kinda old fashioned, harking back to a couple of demonic classics from 50+ years ago. No names for fear of spoilers, but there is an interesting point here, given that Mike Flanagan is the chief producer.

In this movie the protagonist is twice asked to explain why she never had a child, an issue that was also at the dark heart of Flanagan's Gerald's Game. In that movie the answer is given in a beautiful bit of story-telling, as a look between mother and daughter fades to black. Here, we aren't given a true answer, and the psychological pieces are just left lying around. The closest we get is the protagonist as a child looking toward a window.

The performances are good, pace is good, and there is one simple jump scare at about the third mark that got my adrenalin buzzing. The sound design excels with the spooky hooting and wailing from the woods. And the music score is nicely varied, although the director went for a welcome bit of silence during one creepy scene in a prison. One outstanding use of music is the song strummed by the lost sister, which in hindsight helps elaborate on the mystery - you can catch it again over the end credits, with a sad little nursery rhyme tagged on. Also, the credits show how much effort was put into real effects.

Finally, good to see recognition of the crowd funding of the movie.

Overall: Well told story, but nothing new.