ESSAY: The Sacrament (2014), Willow Creek (2014), & the Shape of Found Footage Horror to Come

Abstract: An essay on the current state of the found footage subgenre of horror. Prognosis: Fatal, probably, but that death nerve keeps on twitching. An examination, in particular, of two recent and once-promising FF films (The Sacrament [2014] and Willow Creek [2014]) that fail to add much new to the subgenre while basing their approaches to the form in those of a couple of films over a decade old. The found footage movement appears stagnant, but does any opportunity for advancement or maturation remain? There are slow-burning glimmers of hope.

This essay features discussion of:

The Sacrament (2014) dir. Ti West

Zero Day (2003) dir. Ben Coccio

Willow Creek (2014) dir. Bobcat Goldthwait

The Blair Witch Project (1999) dir. Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick

Back in 2012, after the release of the non-FF but sneakingly like and advertised-as FF horror film Chernobyl Diaries (2012), I predicted that as found footage horror films began to fall from favor, as Hollywood studios and independents alike began to realize that the success of Paranormal Activity (2009) was not quite as repeatable as they'd hoped (even for further Paranormal Activity films), what we'd begin to see was something akin to osmosis. Screened alongside mainstream fluff at the multiplexes for long enough, found footage horror would begin to rub off on its more traditionally filmed peers to the extent that the two would soon become indistinguishable, I imagined. The handheld, documentary style would pop up in films that weren't intended as faux-documentaries, and the emphasis on "character" and "narrative" in traditional horror would evolve into an emphasis on the audience's "experience" of the audible and visual horror. I will pat myself on the back for this one: the fingerprint of the found footage movement is omnipresent as of 2014. You'd have a smaller list by simply noting those films that don't in some way utilize the found footage aesthetic, but for the sake of supporting my claim here's a collection of relevant films that do: Sinister (2012), The Conjuring (2013), The Banshee Chapter (2013), Lovely Molly (2012), The Apparition (2012), Oculus (2014), The Purge (2013), The Quiet Ones (2014). None of these films could reasonably be classified as a found footage horror film, and yet each either contains sections that utilize the FF aesthetic or are traditional horror movies filmed in an FF-reminiscent style.

So my glimpse into the crystal ball of horror cinema's future proved me correct that once, but could I manage a repeat performance of foreseeing? Later in 2012, while fuming over the detritus released to the general public under the working title of The Devil Inside (2012), I posited that all of the creative potential in the unadulterated FF form hadn't been evacuated quite yet, and I was certain that those storytelling champions of the subgenre were riding their horses into view from off on the horizon. Any second now, they'd be here, and found footage horror would find its redemption in the public's eye through their efforts.

I'll admit that I was maybe less of an oracle on this matter. The last two years of found footage films, both major and minor, have been pretty much what I had hoped they wouldn't be: hours upon hours of paranormal investigation or Satanic happening found footage with ambitions stretching no farther than "BOO!" As the gap between consumer and professional digital video fast closes, another sort of osmosis is happening in the realm of budget horror cinema, in which narrative inspiration seems to be derived from supernatural Youtube Gotcha! videos with the highest number of views. The creative bankruptcy of the majority of FF films being produced and released at this moment signals that the subgenre is undoubtedly at its lowest point.

Yet, I wasn't entirely foolhardy in my prediction. In the last few years, a handful of genuine filmmakers have indeed seen the value of the non-traditional found footage form in communicating their stories on screen and thus have produced found footage films of their own. For instance, Barry Levinson (The Bay [2012]) , Renny Harlin (Devil's Pass [2013]), and Bernard Rose (Sxtape [2013]) have all directed found footage horror films within the last two years. Sure, those three aren't exactly visionary filmmakers (as each of their FF films indicate), and, moreover, their embrace of the FF form might be rooted in practicality (promising an FF film's budget might be the only way these relative old-timers can find work within the ever-youthful genre), but the point stands. Filmmakers raised and practiced on traditionally filmed cinema are turning toward the found footage form for some reason or another. Notably, this year saw the limited releases of two promising found footage films from two very different but equally legitimate directors: The Sacrament, directed by Ti West (The Innkeepers [2011], The House of the Devil [2009]), and Willow Creek, directed by Bobcat Goldthwait (God Bless America [2011], World's Greatest Dad [2009]). Perhaps, I imagined, these bonafide filmmakers, whose previous features I find to be both intelligently and artfully crafted, would indeed be the subgenre's ghoulishly pallid white knights, rescuing it from the clutches of insipidness.

My imagination was a bit too romantic. The Sacrament and Willow Creek are both fine films, and in style and execution are among the most satisfying the found footage crop has produced in the past few years. Yet, while watching them, I couldn't shake the vague sense of disappointment that comes with reliving a once-fond experience after years spent apart and finding it somehow diluted, cheapened in the interim. Against my hopes, the majority of what these two films bring to the subgenre is a rehash of what had already come before, over a decade earlier, in a pair of superior films (namely, Zero Day [2003] and The Blair Witch Project [1999]). Despite the best efforts of these talented artists, the subgenre in their hands remains a set of carnival rides eroded with age and held together with rubber bands.

Allow me to explain:

First, there's Ti West's The Sacrament. Heading into it, I held an unreasonable amount of hope for this one. I felt the subgenre needed a savior, and who could be better equipped to accomplish this salvaging than one of our best contemporary horror filmmakers? I nearly peed myself in anticipation when I found out West was making an FF film. Sure, his first effort in the subgenre (the "Second Honeymoon" segment from the FF anthology V/H/S [2012]) wasn't revelatory, but it was the shining pearl of relative intelligence and creativity in that turd pile. I hoped that a full-length effort, unencumbered by the anthology format, might prove even stronger. But The Sacrament is a disappointment. It's been accused of being a slavish faux-reproduction of the Jonestown Massacre, and that it is, but that fact alone doesn't make it a wasted effort. The Jonestown Massacre is a bizarre and perplexing event in American history that no number of talking head documentaries can suffice to make total sense out of. Thus, The Sacrament poised itself to be an enlightening, if fictional, dramatization of events that could attempt to explain, on some level, the damaged human minds that caused it.

It's at this point that I'm reminded of Ben Coccio's faux-Columbine shooting found footage film, Zero Day. What that film and The Sacrament have in common is the use of the found footage form to bring immediacy to a historical tragedy, to allow our camera eye to witness the events firsthand without the glossy layers of Hollywood filmmaking separating us from the very real (if, again, slightly fictionalized) carnage. But, in contrast to Zero Day, The Sacrament doesn't succeed in this goal of making real the horrifying unreality of the actual events. Being a "Horror Film" first and foremost, The Sacrament keeps its cult members frightening and alien to us, and thus we're never presented with the opportunity to know or understand them. We are made to become firsthand witnesses to the events, but we leave them knowing no more about why they happened then those real-life viewers watching television news reports of the Jonestown Massacre's aftermath. It's a problem of perspective: Zero Day utilized the found footage form as a video diary of its Columbine-esque killers, and we, aligned with them as viewers, were encouraged to identify with them and their deeds. The film doesn't justify the actions of its teen murderers, but it allows us to, on a human level, understand a bit more about these killers (both real and imagined) beyond the sneering villain yearbook photos burned into our brains. The Sacrament, released a decade after Zero Day, neglects to forcefully provide us that human identification, and thus its use of this particular history-pilfering form fails. By the close of the film, we know nothing about the motivation of Gene Jones's supernaturally charismatic Father, nor do we truly understand what it took for his many followers to blindly live and die by his dictates, against their better sense and reason. The Sacrament strives to be a Creepy Cult Found Footage movie, not a Chilling Investigation of the Human Condition and Mass Suicide, and thus reeks more of "exploitation" than "examination." This observation doesn't render The Sacrament's most powerful scenes, like the inevitable Kool-Aid guzzling, any less visceral, but it does make them feel significantly more hollow.

And if the connection between The Sacrament and Zero Day feels more spiritual than direct to you in this argument about found footage's inability to advance, then consider Bobcat Goldthwait's found footage Bigfoot hunt, Willow Creek. Before Willow Creek, Goldthwait had never made a  horror film. Regardless, it was difficult for me not to be intrigued by the prospect of what he could bring to the subgenre. His previous, darkly comedic features proved to be winning satires with a keen eye focused upon the shallowness of our current media. Could Willow Creek enact a similar critique, perhaps with that keen eye focused on the innumerable Bigfoot Hunter or Paranormal Investigator "reality" television programs littering the broadcast schedule? Somewhat unfortunately, Willow Creek is a straight-up Bigfoot hunt found footage flick. Bigfoot FF is some of the worst out there at the moment (beaten for the title only by Abandoned Asylum Ghost Hunter FF), so as this realization about the film's intentions dawned on me about a third of the way through my viewing of Willow Creek, I feared for the worst. Fortunately, Willow Creek's steadfast return to the basics of the found footage form reveals the lingering potency of the subgenre's style.

But, simultaneously, Willow Creek reveals the subgenre's unwillingness to move that style forward. As a Supernatural Documentary Gone Awry FF, Willow Creek follows, beat-for-beat, the exact structure of the subgenre's chief progenitor, The Blair Witch Project. As in The Blair Witch Project, we witness the intrepid protagonists of Willow Creek preparing for their documentary shoot, filming introductory footage, entering the relevant town and interviewing the locals, heading to a famous local spot and filming more footage, camping out and being relentlessly terrorized at night while in a tent, getting lost in the woods, and perishing in an enigmatic ending in which much camera-whirling carnage is had and a vague callback from earlier is made. Goldthwait's film is not as succinct as The Blair Witch Project (the townie interview section of Willow Creek drags on far too long), but despite sharing an identical structure, the film doesn't prove grating. While more ramshackle and amateurish than I would have banked on, the film features amiable performances and enough suspense to justify its existence. But still, the question must be begged: is aping (pun intended) another decade-plus-old entry in the subgenre the best that a legitimate filmmaker can muster in 2014? Does such an obvious purloining of previous source material (however effective in isolation) herald the death knell of found footage? Has the shaky well run dry?

I'm still unsure. Considering The Sacrament and Willow Creek in retrospect, I realize that each film's most effective scene provides something to the viewer that traditionally filmed narratives would be extremely reluctant to and that most FF films of yesteryear would also most likely shy away from in their push toward kinetic, nausea-inducing camera movement: the extended stillness of frame. We see this in The Sacrament's horrific stationary long shot of the force-injection of cyanide between once-loving family members. We see it in Willow Creek's remarkable, nearly 20-minute-long tent-entrenched long take. (Actress Alexie Gilmore's face throughout this shot is the film's MVP). These shots may not be new uses of the form (even each of Paranormal Activity films makes occasional use of the camera that lingers), but they're by far the most prolonged and effective uses of a stationary camera that I've seen in the subgenre. Each of these scenes (though brief when considered in the larger running time) remind us of FF's effectiveness as a form, of the squirm-inducing splendor of the camera that won't flinch, and of the filmmaker whose presence is felt only through an absence of interference, who refuses to give us relief through a cut to quieter pastures and instead leaves us as helpless as a camera dropped to the ground. Moving forward, I hope the FF movement embraces this stillness of stationary horror. Let the cameras fall-- and remain-- where they may.

Meltdown 07: Found Footage Rewind (Part II)

Bigfoot County (2012) dir. Stephon Stewart

A trio of amateur bigfoot hunters travel to California's infamous Bigfeet-laden Siskiyou County (home of the world's only bigfoot trap) in order to catch the cryptid on film. As with Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes (2012), the big guy's name being prominently featured in the title does not guarantee him a starring role, and here he's reduced to a brief tent attack and a Patterson-Gimlin film punchline in the final shot (a shot spoiled-- if a shot as obvious as this one even can be-- at the conclusion of the below trailer). Bigfoot's a background diversion from the real horror faced by the trio on their expedition: violent backwoods Californian hillbilly pot growers. Yes, what begins as a dull Blair Witch clone-- enlivened only by the too-brief presence of Sam Ayers as Travis, a prayin', poem writin', and emotionally unhinged bigfoot witness-- devolves in its final act into Deliverance-style human torture and sexual violation. Bigfoot County might be the only FF film to end with its Camera Operator's anal rape rather than his gory off screen demise (a dubious distinction if ever there was one). Obviously the film has some problems with tone, but what's worse is that this problem feels deliberate, as if the film is attempting to surprise us with its ingenuity. Its pals-on-a-mission goofiness gives way to melodramatic moaning (after the woman in their team is abducted, the two men wander around together, one telling the other-- through tears-- how much he's always admired him), but this then makes an abrupt shift into tactless sadism that proves to be neither emotionally affecting nor satisfying on the narrative level. (And, again, surprise appears to be the major reason for the inclusion of said sadism and its hillbilly perpetrators, despite the fact that we're warned about gun-toting pot growers within the film's first fifteen minutes, and we all know that we can expect gun-toting pot growers mentioned in the first act to make an appearance in the third. Call them Chekov's Marijuana Maniacs.) There's also a brief and perplexing interlude during which the group discovers the remnants of an occult goat sacrifice in the forest. (After spotting sticks and stones in unnerving man-made formations, one of the group gasps, "and there's a candle!") I have no recollection of this tidbit ever being resolved, so I must assume it's a piece from another film, as lost in the woods as we are, stumbled upon only by happenstance. One supposes the filmmakers imagine themselves clever for continuously tugging at that rug beneath our feet, attempting to subvert expectations that they've barely managed to establish, but they fail to notice the reality: we are all standing on linoleum in another room altogether.

Greystone Park: The Asylum Tapes (2012) dir. Sean Stone

In a subgenre as occasionally bereft of creativity as FF, to be the standard bearer of incompetent, plodding, smug, unimaginative trash is a fact worth touting. Sadly, nowhere in Greystone Park's promotional verbiage will you find such a pronouncement. In fact, you might actually enter the film assuming that those behind it were trying, which would be a big disappointment for you in the end. The film was conceived and directed by Oliver Stone's son, Sean Stone, which probably explains why the film has received a decent home video release and an incomprehensible amount of press. This is, boiled down to its essence, the product of wealthy but talentless children. (Even when removed from its proper context, the film's best quote might be "It's not exactly the NYU library.") These chumps cynically exploit the FF fad, but what's most amusing is how poorly they accomplish such a modest goal: they pepper their film with uproarious, hookah-influenced "spiritual" pronouncements in their characters' dialogue, overlay the audio track with a twinkly nondiegetic score, and allow their expensive camera equipment to glitch up in post-production at the exact moment anything of paranormal interest occurs on screen. One scene blatantly rips off the corner-staring conclusion of The Blair Witch Project; another presents a truly raggy Raggedy Ann doll as a unironic object of fear. Here's a sampling of some choice dialogue: a) "what if all the explorers get turned into dolls?" b) "no, that's the smell of shadows," c) "if you stay in a labyrinth long enough, you'll go mad," and d) a text message: "Jesus Wept." It would all be highly humorous if there weren't 83 minutes of it. I'd be interested in watching Greystone Park again only under the influence of heavy spirits while playing the unfathomably pretentious commentary track included on the home video release (so lovingly reviewed over at The Onion's AV Club).

388 Arletta Avenue (2011) dir. Randall Cole

In consideration of its subgenre, there's nothing particularly groundbreaking about 388 Arletta Avenue: its "spy cameras installed throughout a house" conceit was already employed to great effect in the Colin Hanks-starring stalker drama Alone With Her (2007) and its "creepy, motiveless killer with a bank of monitors in his editing station" pops up in both Evil Things (2009) and Re-Cut (2010) (the latter of which I'll be covering here soon). But the lack of any innovation of the FF aesthetic hardly matters when presented with a well-made film, and that is precisely what Randall Cole's polished feature is. It's clear there's a bit more money than usual invested in this one (look at the cast, prominently featuring accomplished actors Nick Stahl, Devon Sawa, and Mia Kirshner). This above-average expenditure adds some welcome talent and attention to quality to the film without giving it an artificial Hollywood polish. 388 Arletta Avenue makes the potentially troublesome choice of aligning our perspective throughout with its villain, rather than our ostensible hero (Nick Stahl). But it pulls off an admirable balancing act, making us complicit in the stalker's voyeurism while sympathizing with Stahl's plight as he attempts to discover the whereabouts of his missing wife and decode the stalker's cryptic (and rather elaborate) messages. This works because, throughout, the stalker remains an anonymous entity without motivation or defining characteristics. Besides some occasional heavy breathing, he's merely a seemingly endless array of omnipresent hidden cameras tormenting Stahl, giving us a tension-ripe tactical advantage on our hero without creating any overt identification with the stalker. An easy complaint might be Stahl's character's lack of good sense when taking action against his tormentor and when explaining his situation to the proper authorities, but this seems acceptable upon the revelation of his prior struggles with alocohol and aggression. One must temper any praise of the film with the fact that I've watched far too many of these things for my own good and the mere breath of competence sends me into euphoria, but 388 Arletta Avenue sets out to be no more than an effective if substance-less thriller, and, by gum, in that it succeeds.

Grave Encounters 2 (2012) dir. John Poliquin

The original Grave Encounters was an inevitable development for the subgenre. It was the big, dumb, glossy, easily imitable, CGI-infested scarefest that existed entirely for the pleasure of impressionable teenagers. What a surprise, then, that the sequel revolves around an impressionable teenager who becomes obsessed with the original film and the possibility that it it wasn't a fictional FF film after all, but a slice of documented reality. This is what's called the Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) approach to a sequel, which isn't totally unwelcome (Blair Witch 2 roolz). And, unsurprisingly, the first two acts of Grave Encounters 2 are its most enjoyable, featuring a plethora of meta in-jokes among which are scathing Youtube reviews of the first Grave Encounters and snide comments about its sketchy CGI (chief among these good-spirited jabs is the presence of the Viscous Brothers-- the directors of the original film-- cameoing as incompetent interns at Grave Encounters' production company). When Grave Encounters 2 transitions to another ill-planned expedition of the abandoned psychiatric institution of the first film, it ends up resembling, well, the first film. Beat for beat, it becomes a mini-remake, covering all of the drab action of the original (plus a little extra phantasmagoria involving disintegrating doors) in about half the time. Did you enjoy Grave Encounters? If so, it seems hard to imagine you'd be disappointed with the follow-up. In fact, in one or two ways, I'd call it the superior effort, whatever faint praise that amounts to. I found myself most bemused by its perpetually self-deprecating sense of humor. The film's hero, film student Alex (Richard Harmon), bemoans the fact that there isn't "any class" in the horror genre anymore, calling it all "quick cuts and lens flares," crying out "where are the Carpenters and Cravens in our generation?" He says all this before calling himself a "visionary filmmaker" and embarking on production of his student film that will "reinvent the genre": a gore-drenched torture porn in the played-out Hostel tradition, replete with jump scares and grungy attitude. One almost appreciates the Vicious Brothers and director John Poliquin's overt cynicism regarding their own trend-riding work in a moment like this.

Next time: The Tapes (2011), Hollow (2011), In the Dark (2004), & The Bake Streets Hauntings (2011).

Meltdown 07: Found Footage Rewind (Part I)

2012 was a productive year for the found footage genre. The number of films produced (by both professionals and Youtube-based amateurs) and uncovered (by the assiduous online fan community) during the year was staggering, easily doubling the total number of found footage films known to exist previously. If you've been reading the blog for awhile now, you'll know that I have a great deal of affection for the genre (despite the gross overabundance of crud littering its recent history) and you may recall that I tackled a slew of found footage and documentary horrors last summer. This go-around, I'll be writing about 27 more, almost all of which have become available to the FF-connoisseur only in the last year. This will merely be scratching the surface of the genre's recent offerings, with the additional threat of many more cropping up in this next year always palpable. I won't bury the lead any further: this latest Meltdown will be a bumpy, shaky, nauseating journey (and not at all because of the camerawork), but a few lost video cassettes buried deep in the box will (hopefully) make the magnetic tape's journey towards the rewind button a worthwhile one.

Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes (2012) dir. Corey Grant

While I find myself most anticipating Eduardo Sanchez's forthcoming Exists (2013), there has certainly been no dearth of bigfoot-or-bigfootesque-centric FF flicks in the meantime to give one an impression of how the big guy fares under the aesthetic. Following the same sequel-minded track taken by Evidence (2011), Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes teases us with the promise of bigfoot and then gives us something else instead. It's hard to say exactly what that something is (a bright light? a scaly ape? a teleporting yellow square?), primarily because director Corey Grant and his writers don't want us to know: they want us to be tantalized just enough to be suckered into watching another one. This recent trend in FF films of structuring themselves around frustrating ambiguity masquerading as conceptual ambitiousness (call it the "Paranormal Activity Sequel Generator Syndrome") is a real drag and seems at least partially derived from a faulty comprehension of The Blair Witch Project's "less is more" ethos. (Their twisted-around notion is more like "less is easier/gives us more leeway when we have to write another one.") Looking past this unsatisfying over-reliance on ambiguity concerning the creature and its abilities, it should come as little shock that The Lost Coast Tapes has scant else to offer but telegraphed jump scares and goofy jokes. The film leans harder on its humor than these affairs usually do, incorporating much hamming for the cameras, episodes of spazzy humor from an obscenely nerdy audio tech residing somewhere along the spectrum, and some mildly clever metacommentary (a black character who is part of the documentary crew at the beginning of the film explains to the others that he's aware of his cinematic expendability on a horror movie-esque excursion like the one they are about to embark on, and so promptly exits the film, never to return). The film's major theme (if you want to call it that) is the tried and true "Emmys over safety" hubris, which leads to much disaster for all involved. Like all the other FF films adopting the subject and style of paranormal investigation reality television programming, it finds no angle from which to meaningfully explore or critique the phenomenon, instead using it for mere misguided character motivation (who is harboring delusions that Finding Bigfoot would ever receive an Emmy?) and creaky justification for leaving the cameras rolling.

Bucks County Massacre (2010) dir. Jason Sherman

Following a trend we'll see developing throughout this Meltdown, Bucks County Massacre begins with a text backstory concerning the existence of the "real footage" as we see it, under the assumption that justification is needed. And, boy, is it convoluted: the police discovered the footage at the crime scene and, instead of reviewing it themselves, sent it to a non-police affiliated production company to edit it down to a manageable length in order to "expedite the investigation" (because, yes, this happens all the time), but then it turns out one of the employees at the production company saw fit to leak the gnarly footage to the Internet, upon the discovery of which "numerous legal actions ensued" between the police and the company and the footage was removed from the Internet, only to then be re-released to the Internet by the police themselves because... well, why not? This back story has no actual bearing on the film proper, but it's demonstrative of its overall emphasis on including bits and pieces that add little or nothing to the very simple FF tale we've been presented. For instance, the film routinely cuts to after-the-fact interviews with friends and family members of the victims involved in the titular massacre, but we never learn anything nuanced, revelatory, or even intriguing about our deceased characters in any of these talking head cutaways. So why include them, other than to vary the content and pad out the running time? Why make such a big deal out of other aspects of the story, like the fact that the primary camera operator (C.O. hereafter) is an Iraq war veteran, only to have them come to noting, while playing other bits out in a purely conventional fashion (like with the introduction of Chekov's Rifle Collection in the first act and its later use in the third)? Such sloppy storytelling decisions obscure the fairly decent scare story locked in here, viewable in fits and starts as the film progresses. Bucks County Massacre follows the events of a meathead birthday party at a house deep in the woods (beer pong immediately, homophobic humor shortly thereafter) as it is terrorized by a savage wild man who "looks like it was human, but it wasn't." Mildly charming and believable party footage soon gives way to atrocious overacting and fits of hysterics, just as earlier subtle background shivers are dropped in favor of obvious, tension-deflating jump scares. The film's most interesting scene is one in which the C.O. hooks his camera up to a TV in the house's living room soon after a forest attack to review the frightening footage for the assembled partygoers. As they watch the footage we've just witnessed, their reactions are intense as they flail about in fear, and for a moment we wish we felt the same way.

Crowsnest (2012) dir. Brenton Spencer

Like Bucks County Massacre, Crowsnest centers itself around an excursion to a remote cabin for a birthday celebration. Unlike Bucks County, with its vaguely likeable bros and ladies, Crowsnest's protagonists are repulsive and annoying, the type who make dreadful puns ("I cunt hear you, I have an infucksion in my ear") and drink wine coolers in automobiles. What begins with some tasteless Rear Window-styled peeping and an attempt at making a sex tape soon evolves into a standard but suspenseful Duel-inspired pursuit. (Though the earlier FF film Evil Things (2010) has it beat on this count and, really, on every other count too.) It's hard to screw up such a premise, and Crowsnest doesn't muck up the stew until tossing in a Wrong Turn-ish backwoods cannibal spice, which is less cliched than poorly executed. Occasionally inspired visuals are hampered at all times by the general unlikeable nature of the film's protagonists, who squabble constantly and barely seem to enjoy each other's company (when one of the characters runs off to get help for another in a precarious situation, the latter yells out to make sure the former knows he's a "fucking faggot"). We find out (pointlessly) of an affair carried on by two members of the group, and of course we do not care. The driver of their car is often blamed by the others for being reasonable and for failing to prevent events he has no control over. When our cannibalistic killers take hold of the camera and have their own fun with it, we are grateful. Because it would prefer that we're never satisfied, the film closes with a godawful original song, which has thankfully already slipped from my memory, but I vaguely recall it sounding like the product of someone who had heard a couple (and only a couple) Nine Inch Nails songs. My final evaluation of Crowsnest will be fulfilled by the best note I took when suffering through it: "a goodly amount of vomit."

Amber Alert (2012) dir. Kerry Bellessa

Amber Alert is a fantastic example of a thrilling, creative concept sideswiped and then obliterated by some of the worst acting on the planet's face. It's a frustrating film: there's a lot to like about it, but it actively prevents itself from being recommendable. It begins with a couple of platonic friends having one of their younger brothers film them for an Amazing Race audition tape. They're an overly cutesy but amiable enough pair for the first fifteen minutes or so. But when they're cruising on the highway and glimpse a car being sought after in an amber alert message (a.k.a. a special bulletin informing citizens of a child abduction), the two launch into a screechy bout of logorrhea that lasts the duration of the film. Endless inane dialogue is yelled out by stars Chris Hill and Summer Bellessa (director Kerry Bellessa's better half)-- "there might be a child being molested in there!" "molestors have phones!"-- and we soon forget to regard them as human beings caught in an endeavor worthy of our support. They tail the car as an unbelievably inept police force fails to save the day, and despite a tension-filled encounter with the suspected child abductor and the shockingly clever employment of a wireless microphone in the backseat of the suspect's car, we're left in agonizing aural discomfort as the pair (but particularly the character played by Bellessa) pursue this situation to a grim conclusion, despite the lack of any solid motivation (a problem that could have been alleviated with some throwaway line about a cousin who was abducted in a similar fashion or what have you). A coda attempting to aggrandize the pair's partially successful but foolhardy endeavor falls woefully flat. Their good intentions are hard to miss, but inexplicable stupidity colors their every action.

Next Monday: brace yourselves for Bigfoot County (2012), Greystone Park: The Asylum Tapes (2012), 388 Arletta Avenue (2011), & Grave Encounters 2 (2012).

Night of the Demon (1980) dir. James C. Wasson

Logline: A team of anthropologists go in search of Bigfoot, find Bigfoot, also find a Bigfoot cult. Many lives are lost for science.

Crime in the Past: Bigfoot rapes a woman named Crazy Wanda (who may or may not have been bestowed with that appellation prior to her journey into the hermit lifestyle). Wanda has a Bigfoot baby, which is then murdered by fear God-fearing father. The world could not withstand multiple Bigfeet (and a mixed-species Bigfoot at that!).

Bodycount: 13, including the death of any sense of good taste.

Themes/Moral Code: It's no surprise that there aren't any themes of interest here, but the moral code is shaky too. Bigfoot hates perversion (he murders two quasi-writhing lovers in a van), lewdness (he rips the penis off a man peeing in the forest), and trespassing (he kills all those prying anthropologists), but he also seems to hate innocence (he decimates a whole family of picnickers). The only person he seems to take a liking to is Crazy Wanda (Melanie Graham), and even then he has a dreadful way of expressing it. (It's intimated that Bigfoot and Crazy Wanda have carried on some sort of creepy inter-species relationship in the years following his rape of her. I refuse to pursue the implications of this-- I leave that to you, dear reader). Otherwise, there's no winning with Bigfoot.

Killer's Motivation: He's Bigfoot.

Final Girl: Bigfoot spares no one.

The Good, the Bad, & the Cheese:  The above is not entirely true, because Bigfoot does (probably unintentionally) spare Professor Nugent (Michael Cutt), lead researcher and no relation to Ted. But "spare" is a term I'm using loosely: Prof. Nugent has been horrifically burned, and spends the film's running time strapped to a hospital bed with half of his face bandaged. I note this because Prof. Nugent's convalescence produces the film's sole point of technical interest: Nugent tells a group of assorted hospital staff (and by extension, us) the events of the entire film in flashback. Yeah, right, so that's not of interest in itself-- but wait, there's more: there are then flashbacks within the major flashback, highlighting the circumstances of the deaths of various forest trespassers. But then we can't exactly call them flashbacks, because all of the characters within them (excepting Bigfoot) are horribly murdered (and I'm pretty certain it's not Bigfoot having the flashbacks), so they're more akin to "creative visual re-enactments" of the murders. But, in any case, there is at least one actual flashback within the framing flashback: Crazy Wanda has a flash back encompassing a couple years of events between her, Papa, and Bigfoot (this flashback being contained within Nugent's larger flashback). And then we even get dreams with the framing flashback. And sometimes we're allowed to see scenes in what we're forced to call BigfootVision, as we're transmitted the big brute's direct point of view as he stalks his victims, his vision rendered as two distorted, red-tinged circles in the center of the screen (so maybe we are blessed with Bigfoot flashbacks after all?). So, yes, all of this confusion and complexity is undoubtedly the product of shoddy scripting and editing, but heck if it doesn't produce a massively disorienting effect. No other film feels quite like Night of the Demon, for better or worse.

And I suppose another reason I appreciate the film's loopy narrative (literally loopy in this case) is because it seems unintentional, as if the filmmakers had to find some shortcut to string all their gags together and that incoherent layering of narrative levels was the best they could muster. The rest of the film is composed of very intentional gore gags: Bigfoot swirling around a dude in a sleeping bag, Bigfoot yanking off arms and penises, Bigfoot skewering with pitchforks and chopping with axes, Bigfoot whipping someone with his own intestines, Bigfoot grabbing and repeatedly throwing two armed women into each other so that they stab each other to death. The blood flows thick, but one can't help feeling that James C. Wasson and Co. are laying it on a little too thick, too. They're aware that having Bigfoot cause all this mayhem is funny, and so their execution rarely is. Brief segments of Night of the Demon are humorous because inept (the prolonged sequence of a woman dying of "fright" while Bigfoot idles aimlessly outside her van), but when it's inept and consciously striving to be funny, it can barely choke out a grin from me. I'm sure others feel differently, but the above coupled with its aforementioned lack of thematic content make it somewhat less than a favorite in my personal pantheon of slasherdom. Bizarro cinema, truly, but a curiously empty breed.