Meltdown 07: Found Footage Rewind (Part V)

Long Pigs (2007) dir. Nathan Hines & Chris Power

Nathan Hines and Chris Power's Long Pigs would probably seem more revelatory in a world that didn't already possess Man Bites Dog (1992). Sub out a murderous thief for a murderous cannibal and the situation prodding forth the narrative in Long Pigs is nearly identical to that of its spiritual predecessor: a documentary film crew chooses as its subject a dangerous criminal and becomes complicit in his crimes while documenting him as he demonstrates his process and extolls the virtues of his own twisted life philosophy. Yet, this substitution of the documentary subject's profession leads Long Pigs down some unique pathways of contemplation concerning (of all things) the morality of our dietary choices. The need for food-- or, more specifically, the desire for tasty food that provides gustatory pleasure in addition to sustenance-- creates in some human beings the mindset that exquisite cuisine is an unalienable right afforded to those who can acquire it. The moral dimension of consuming other living beings merely for the taste that they provide is neglected entirely by the connoisseur mindset. The dictum become "I eat others because I can." This is a position not unfamiliar to the majority of Western citizens who, whether consciously or not, eat cheeseburgers while driving their children to the petting zoo, and who turn a blind eye toward the mechanized horrors of the slaughterhouse they purchase from while being unable to inflict the same damage on a living animal to produce a meal for themselves. For these people, the taste of meat overrides any ethical quandaries that would stand in the way of enjoying it, which allows them to never meaningfully engage with the cognitive dissonance they should be experiencing. But there is also a more advanced specimen of this mindset, the civilized hunter, who is so deeply deluded by his desire for new tastes that he no longer views other creatures as anything but objects, products, and walking foodstuff. 

Long Pigs' cannibal subject, Anthony (Anthony Alviano) has simply taken the unreflective carnivore's consumption practices to the furthest limit they could possibly achieve, tossing off the final shred of human morality in his quest for good eats. In one scene Anthony calmly, almost lovingly field dresses the corpse of one of his human victims, narrating his progress and stressing the importance of tying off the anus in order to prevent contamination of the meat. In a later scene, "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies" plays over sped up footage of yet another human field dressing. He tells his documentarians, with assumed authority, that "one animal is as good as the next," and that there's no point in considering the morality of what we eat when "even broccoli has feelings." His logic is obviously daft, but what frightens is that though he may be attempting to justify his horrific eating practices to his observers, he needs no such justification for his own conscience. If we independently decide or are culturally indoctrinated to look at animals as nothing more than food, and if we simultaneously recognize that humans are merely animals, what is to prevent one from not assuming that the consumption of other human beings is not also acceptable? Despite this blatant subtext, the film does not at all resemble a smug, satirical tract against the consumption of animals on the grounds of ethics. Though it's an exploration of a character who has chosen to ignore the taboos of society and twist its own assumptions (perhaps accurately) to satisfy his own greed, the film doesn't appear to take a very clear position against anyone other than the exploitative filmmakers, who get what's coming to them. This ambivalence leaves the film unanchored to any solid basis of ethics, but not necessarily to the film's detriment: the character of Anthony remains a personification of the philosophical ills of society that we are all, in fact, complicit in. How can we mount an argument against his practices that is not, at its base, hypocritical? And when his practices include killing and eating a child, it's safe to say that we have a problem. Though the film is disinterested in the formal experimentation and metafictional genre probing of similar Man Bites Dog-influenced mockumentary horror films like J. T. Petty's S&Man (2006) and Scott Glosserman's Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006), Long Pigs nevertheless makes an intriguing and often disturbing entry into this curious emerging sub-subgenre.

100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck (2012) dir. Martin Andersen

Examining their upcoming slate of feature films reveals that The Asylum production studio does not appear poised to revitalize their poor reputation. The company was founded upon the production of an endless stream of what has been dubbed "mockbusters," or films that feature titles and content roughly similar to recent major studio fare, released concurrently if not before the bigger pictures they're aping. Though the studio has branched away from this formula on occasion, it's clear that creativity is not their strong suit. In recent years they've produced seven FF films (what they call, amusingly, "reality" films), and while not every one of them has a clear blockbuster that it's mocked up to resemble, they all still manage to capture the general trend of the genre at the moment. Their latest, 100 Ghost Street, is in the Grave Encounters haunted asylum mode and, perhaps astonishingly, is really no worse than any of the other films sporting that featherweight premise. It's a shallow and mostly unengaging film, though dotted throughout with moments of, if not outright fright, certainly the desire to produce fright. The recurring motif of a plethora of black feathers discovered in bizarre locations (inside the asylum's walls; in its toilets) is almost creepy, and the discovery of a trail of fresh blood leading from the floor, up a wall, and into a hatch in the ceiling certainly is. As is the case with most of The Asylum's "reality" films I've seen thus far, 100 Ghost Street is needlessly exploitative, using sexual violence to titillate rather than disgust or unnerve. (I will take this moment to remind you of the tasteful scene in their earlier effort 8213: Gacy House (2010) in which John Wayne Gacy's ghost anally rapes a young man.) In this case, the film features two fits of repugnant The Entity-styled ghost rape (the second of which being, at the very least, a surprising narrative callback to the legend of the titular Richard Speck, made all the more icky by the fact that the person assaulted is a corpse). The lousy CGI, though present throughout, is understated in a way that The Vicious Brothers obviously weren't capable of when creating Grave Encounters, so in that one respect it's an improvement. But, ultimately, all we're doing is applauding a perpetual failure for failing slightly less spectacularly this time around.

Paranormal Entity (2009) dir. Shane Van Dyke

 

Paranormal Entity was The Asylum's second blatant FF mockbuster, coming a year after their Cloverfield homage, Monster (2008). Because it's essentially a domestic drama spurred on by a ghostly demon infestation, Paranormal Entity contains some slightly more interesting thematic content than the bulk of the studio's FF offerings, but only very slightly, signalling that any weight we detect was probably accidental, at best. Its opening text Revelation of Fate spoils all of what's to come after, as it doesn't take long for us to realize that the rape and murder of Samantha Finley (Erin Marie Hogan) by her older brother Thomas (Shane Van Dyke) is supernaturally tinged and not at all influenced by the sleazy doubly incestual angle that it hints at once or twice. At certain moments Paranormal Entity appears to be poking fun of its source material's lapses in logic by humorously amending them: in this film the characters at least try to go to a motel after the ghost shenanigans begin to intensify (though it does not go well), and at one point an exorcism of the house is about to be performed by a psychic before the scene smash cuts to a shot of the same psychic lying dead on the ground. But mostly this is an earnest affair, the filmmakers replacing Paranormal Activity's successful bits with worse ones. Ineptitude is running pretty high when the most frightening static shot jump scare you can muster is a crucifix falling down from a wall.

 

Invasion (a.k.a. Infection) (2005) dir. Albert Pyun

Albert Pyun, director of Cyborg (1989), Captain America (1990), and Dollman (1991), is a master of schlock and Invasion is that exactly. It rides (literally) on its one-take, COPS-inspired police cruiser dashboard camera gimmick. Though, unlike the also seemingly one-take Last Ride (2011), I detected many points in Pyun's film at which a cut could have occurred, and I suspect they did. Unfortunately, any such cuts don't help to make the film less of a drag. Communicating much of the small town alien invasion story through police dispatch banter is a novel concept, making the film feel like an effective radio play bolstered by occasional on-screen action, but all too often even the dialogue drifts away and we're stranded inside the car as it cruises up and down forest dirt roads. At these moments, accompanied as they are by the film's over-dramatic orchestral score, you'd be hard pressed to find an FF film more sleep-inducing. Budget stock sound effects, alien slugs that crawl into people's ears, and a nuclear holocaust fill out the rest of the story. (What's frightfully unclear is how exactly the footage from the police camera survives the atomic blast. Do police cruisers double as refrigerators?) Invasion concludes with a perhaps record-setting 20 minutes of end credits. What more need I say?

Next time, a tsunami of Japanese found footage: Noroi: The Curse (2005), Occult (2009), & Shirome (2010).

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).

Meltdown 03: Lost & Found (Part II)

 

The Black Door (2001) dir. Kit Wong

While flawed to a regrettable degree, The Black Door is without question the most compelling entry in these first two installments of the marathon. Lensed as a documentary horror with several instances of found footage worked into its overall composition, it fashions a unique and engaging structure. When it pauses the main narrative in order to integrate sixteen minutes of faux-8mm found footage from a Satanic ceremony back in 1932 (which in its grainy, degraded, sepia-tone glory looks almost genuine!), I found myself riveted and pleased as it cut back and forth between the two, allowing the tale to unfurl as a genuine investigation of sorts (later on, the film also features a more typical first-person FF exploration of an unnerving abandoned house). While the film's well-developed, super-creepy back story elevates the material, it's somewhat dampened by the present day narrative, which is overly grim and laborious in its pacing, dwelling on the lackluster performances of a handful of unprofessional actors. Which leads me to the film's most distinguishing and off-putting characteristic: the numerous talking head interview segments play out more as long, unprompted monologues, with the C.O.'s infrequent dialogue exclusively (and distractingly) ADR'd in post-production. These monologues allow these amateur performers to go on at length uninterrupted, but they don't have much to add. And that's the film's major issue, at one hour and forty something minutes. But there are enough noteworthy elements for me to recommend: literal blood baths, double Un Chien Andalous, Satanic resurrections, gruesome demon stigmata. With some judicious editing, this would have been an enviable, creative flick. In closing, marvel at the wildly inappropriate trance club track that plays over the closing credits.

Blackwood Evil (2000) dir. Richard Catt

I've already pointed out that there weren't many earnest attempts to recreate the Blair Witch's Project's aesthetic and structural approach in the immediate wake of that film, and that's true; however, there were a few that bothered to try in the year or two that followed, and I've yet to see one as ill-conceived, -planned, and -executed as Blackwood Evil.  Shot on low-grade consumer video (the camera operator has one of those shoulder-mounted clunkers that records directly to VHS), the film is ostensibly the record of a nightly news reporter's hard-hitting journalistic investigation into allegations of ghosts somewhere in the area (any ghost will do). It's a bit of a stretch on verisimilitude, though, considering that the reporter and her cameraman capture approximately no useable footage (star Joanie Bannister's portrayal of a video journalist includes turning away from the camera and walking towards the distance while stumbling through the scattershot information scribbled on the note cards held down by her waist). Pretty much for the duration, nothing happens. The crew being camped out in a purportedly haunted property that stays all too quiet, the plot hinges on the increasingly aggressive banter between the crew and the property's owner, a wet blanket who for no discernible reason has agreed to let them film there in spite of the fact that he would seemingly sooner murder them. If there was any reason to track down Blackwood Evil it would be because of these spirited improvised barbs, which are difficult to fathom even as you hear them-- believe it, dialogue that actually inspires viewer doubletakes. The deaths, when the mercifully befall our crew, are all offscreen, but the aftermaths' gore effects (while lacking by most standards) are quite impressive considering every other area of the production. The FF aspects are exactly no more complex than you'd expect (the C.O. takes pains to remind on more than one occasion that he has been instructed to "film everything"). The crew's giggly, fourth-wall shaking enthusiasm signals that those involved aren't totally soulless in their attempt at filmmaking, but that's poor solace to take. This one is harder to get hold of than most FF films. As far as I can tell, it has never received a commercial release and though someone involved in the production hosted the entire feature on YouTube a few years back, it has since been removed. I don't believe this removal was fueled by shame, but perhaps it should have been. Those in the know are privy to the proper channels where one can scour for a copy, though may I recommend that those brave few simply take a long bath or nap instead. Here, check out the film's official Angelfire webpage.

June 9 (2008) dir. T. Michael Conway

Looked at one way, June 9's structure is better than that of some: a gaggle of boneheaded teens use a camera to record their middle class suburban malaise and tasteless pranks played upon a neighboring town with a cursed past as hints of menace begin to creep into frame from the peripheries. There's even a fun framing device wherein a mysterious party views the tapes after the fact, a device used to similar effect in superior FF outing Evil Things (2009). Looked at in a different way, one could call this approach a diligent producer of tedium. The film's structure is more the latter than the former because its cast of (actual!) teenagers is only as likeable as a cast of teenagers can be (not very): they film themselves attempting to smoke cigarettes through their nostrils, breaking mailboxes for kicks, and engaging in philosophical exchanges about the nature of existence ("Ezra said to take a left turn" "Yeah, well, Ezra is a fag"). Their collective sole redeeming quality is their insistence upon hanging out with their overweight, misfit pal Berty, who is suitably endearing in his headphones-strapped solitude. The film does eventually segue into a pretty effective Two Thousand Maniacs!-esque climax (softened only slightly when the cultish townspeople begin tapping the teens on their skulls with obviously rubber mallets). It's at this moment that the film pulls its only inventive FF conceit by passing off the camera to one of the villains (a little boy townie) for a ten-minute post-credits wrap-up showing us the flipside, or how the cheery murderers live. An intriguing way to conclude, even if it features the film's most knuckleheaded moment: the child, focusing the camera in on a praying mantis he's found in the grass, exclaims, "Hello, grasshopper." June 9, a day that will live in obscurity.

But wait, there's more! Next time: Zero Day (2003), Paranormal Effect (2010), and The Road to L (2005).

Meltdown 03: Lost & Found (Part I)

Before we launch into this, my third reckless movie marathon in a series of who knows how many, a small collection of disclaimers is probably in order:   

Disclaimer 1: Without reservations, I find the found footage movement in contemporary horror to be the most promising development the genre has seen in a long while.

Disclaimer 2: Regardless of this belief of mine, I discover many found footage horror films to be execrable, at best.  

Disclaimer 3: This variable quality has to do with the fact that the found footage genre is, by its very format, constructed around the amateur, the consumer, and therefore has inspired even those without talent or inspiration to give it a go.  

Disclaimer 3.5: This is especially true in the current boom with the FF output from professional production studios. To create a found footage film in the era before prosumer HD camcorders was a decidedly unprofessional task that required skill, ingenuity, enthusiasm, and acceptance of the knowledge that your film was probably never going to be shown in theaters (unsurprisingly, The Blair Witch Project's success was sort of unable to be immediately reproduced with contemporaneous technology (the cash-ins were far more frequently straight direct-to-video parodies)--we don't see the current boom start until 2007-2008, when digital video allowed the conceit to be a good deal more practical and attractive). Today, any studio small or giant can crank one out for nothing, make it look and sound roughly as good as any mainstream fare, and watch as it collects a larger return on its investment than anything that they actually put effort into. Unfortunately, the films seem to make bank in spite of whatever their cinematic qualities may be, and therefore those producing them seem uninterested in whether or not they turn out to be decent films outside of the gimmick. This is a flaw. 

Disclaimer 4: Despite everything I've previously said, I believe some found footage/documentary horrors to be exceptional in their employment of the form to tell riveting, effective horror tales, where the style becomes not a gimmick but a legitimate and useful form of storytelling. Films like Exhibit A (2007), Megan is Missing (2011), The Last Broadcast (1998), Lake Mungo (2008), Trash Humpers (2009), Evil Things (2009), Behind the Mask (2006) and of course progenitors such as Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and The Blair Witch Project (1999) stand as exemplars of the format's strengths.  

Disclaimer 5: I have semi-definite plans about attempting to write something long about the genre for publication. I have spent far too much time collecting, absorbing, and thinking about these films to let it all go to waste. I'll keep you updated.

So, that nonsense out of the way, I'll have you know that I spent 48 hours watching 15 semi-obscure found footage/documentary horror films (which is my new two-day record, for what it's worth). These films span this fresh decade and the two previous. One was possibly the best I've ever seen from the genre, a few were admirable, and some were about as creatively bankrupt as one can fathom. So join me in this bout of two-day hysteria, and let's swear off motion sickness together. A final chilling fact: I have enough unseen found footage films after this to fuel at least three more marathons of comparable length. Brace yourselves.

Evidence (2011) dir. Howie Askins

 

Evidence is a fine beginning to this marathon because it stands as a suitable example of how the FF aesthetic can be used to little effect. In essence, its first 2/3rds is a Blair Witch clone with skunk apes, but there's no real impetus for any of the events shown to be filmed (the camera operator is making a documentary about his friend because... his friend has never been on a camping trip before?). It might be possible to excuse this absence of FF necessity (or logic) if it weren't for the film incessantly reminding the audience of the approach's artificiality. Like several recent FF films (most egregiously Skew (2011)), Evidence decides to have all of its characters whine that "the camera thing is annoying" and treat the camera operator as if he's a maniac for never ceasing to film (curiously, the film also spends an inordinate amount of screetime setting up the C.O. as a genuine sociopath, but fails to pay it off). One might be tempted to label these and other gently meta moments (like when the C.O. self-consciously sets up establishing shows and narrates with soundbites like "EXT. DAY: Pan around to our heroes") as signs of the film's playfuyl awareness of its own methods, but they feel more like fumblings for a rational excuse for the film's existence. The skunk apes are rather effective the first few times we see them (reminiscent in their movements of the pitch-black male aliens from Attack the Block (2011)). Typically, the film's best and worst attempted frights derive from the Blair Witch mold (best: the discovery of the characters' previous night's dialogue carved into the trees surrounding their camp in the morning; worst: the skunk apes sabotaging an RV's engine by gumming it up with dry leaves when no one's looking). The film's most prominent detriment is its gratuitousness: gratuitous bickering, gratuitous female nudity/girl-on-girl makeout sessions, and gratuitous prolonged action sequences. Lapsing into the utterly incomprehensible, Evidence's final act would make for a serviceable video game, I suppose. The same can't be hazarded for its status as a film.

The Wicksboro Incident (2003) dir. Richard Lowry

 

There's something to be said about the charm of a mockumentary that follows around an amiable drunk old codger with his patented alien detector (looking more like an ostentatious child's toy zapper than a genuine electronic device) while maintaining a more or less straight face. The Wicksboro Incident is not great cinema, but as an early entry in the subgenre that's clearly putting in effort, it earns some good will. While beginning as a talking-heads documentary horror about a a subtle alien invasion and the government-instigated vanishing of an entire town (call it Errol Morris' UFO Abduction), the film then cleverly segues into an FF film (replete with a camera confession à la Blair Witch) as events progress, with the implication that an off-camera party edited the footage together after the fact. I say clever because this move shifts one's expectations for the film and its characters-- if they completed the doc, we assume that everything turned out alright for them, while the gradual revelation of the FF method prevents the typical evacuation of tension that several FF films (and their opening title cards of impending doom) often suffer. The narrative's background and mythology are fun enough, but it's a shame that little of it is resolved through the documentary crew's investigation (the film's latter half is solely composed of scenes wherein the group is pursued by shadowy men in black--which do manage to be fitfully suspenseful). The film's major recommendation falls upon the presence of Lloyd, the old, kooky codger. He's the sort of chap who purchases all of a roadside convenience store's ancient cheap wine, falls asleep with lit cigarettes in his hand, and makes sure to scan a seafood restaurant for aliens before the crew chows down. In short, an American treasure.

Welcome to the Jungle (2007) dir. Jonathan Hesleigh

The ludicrous opening title cards inform us that, "People go missing every day. But not the son of the Vice President of the United States. And not in cannibal territory." So we're off on an adventure. Produced by Gale Anne Hurd of T2 and Aliens fame, Welcome to the Jungle (a.k.a. Cannibals) is an early entry in the prosumer boom of the genre and, while aesthetically on par with anything being produced at the moment, seems interested in being little more than an obvious throwback: Cannibal Holocaust lite. "Lite" for numerous reasons: the violence, conflicts, and displays of American brutishness are all significantly neutered variations of the former film's attributes. Even skimpier is the social commentary which--while arguably scathing in the earlier film--is entirely absent here. Rather than displaying the brutal cultural resemblances between the "civilized" and savage societies through the exploits of a violent documentary film crew, Welcome to the Jungle quickly launches two cloying young couples from a vacation in Fiji into a money-making manhunt in cannibal-infested New Guinea (I knows it's what I'd do on vacation!). But this omission is fine because the film is much more concerned in fashioning a no-frills nail-biter than a film with a social agenda. Unfortunately, it places more dramatic weight upon interpersonal conflicts than the obvious--and much more compelling--situational conflict (most of the film's running time is occupied with the straight-laced, mission-oriented couple loudly squabbling with their hopelessly inebriated, jungle-party loving companions. One suddenly begins to wonder why they don't simply kill each other and be done with it). The film is competently shot and occasionally effective in constructing horrific images (I'm thinking particularly of the long scenes of the cannibal tribesmen creeping along the shore, warily stalking the protagonists floating down the river on a raft), but there's little compelling and nothing creative about it. In consideration of the subgenre landmark that it's ripping from, it's difficult to say its scant ambitions earn it a pass. I've just now noticed that I've gone this entire capsule review without mentioning the film's use of FF, which should tell you how integral it is to the narrative. A section in the first act is framed like and contains all of the cinematic ingenuity of an episode of The Real World.

Stay tuned for the next installment (of five), featuring The Black Door (2001), Blackwood Evil (2000), and June 9 (2008).