Home Movie (2009)

Home Movie

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

Notice: No spoilers until stated. 

Overview: A well-executed and harrowingly realistic tale of a parent's worst nightmare.

In the case of paranormal subjects, found footage can make the unreal appear real. And while these films are often terrifying, they also contain a little spark of awe and wonder inherent in making fantasy come to life. In the case of more realistic subjects such as serial killers and rapists, the fantasy is gone and in its place exists only the grim understanding that what you're seeing could genuinely occur.  Many of the most disturbing films of all-time are of this variety, including the original found footage film, Cannibal Holocaust.

Home Movie is of the latter variety, and while it's not one of the most disturbing films of all-time, it's definitely disturbing, and some of its dark images have continued to linger with me long after viewing.

Home Movie concerns a small family: the minister father, the psychiatrist mother, and their twin children Jack and Emily. The family has just moved out to a secluded house in the woods to live a quiet, idyllic life. The parents are warm and nurturing, but the children aren't quite normal. The ten year old twins are developing an unhealthy taste for killing and causing pain.

No matter how many times a found footage film takes me to the woods, it is always good. Is there any better setting in the world? The woods just has an intrinsic foreboding to it somehow. The house and locale here are beautiful, it's an inherently chilling setting and they pulled it off perfectly.

The first act of this film is especially excellent. The early scenes of the happy mother and father nurturing their children are incredibly real and well-written. The foreshadowing at this point is strong without being obvious. The placement of the children's story about the dragon with a paper bag over his head verges on brilliant. It's heartbreaking to see such loving parents and then to witness what transpires with the children. The rising action that follows is handled aptly with a creepy aplomb. Even if the direction becomes obvious after the first time the kids act out, the disturbing journey is worth more than the mystery.

While the hints are subtle, another area the film excels in is portraying the children's interest for the macabre. It's frightening to imagine these regular looking kids who see death and become obsessed with it.

The only thing holding this film back from ranking higher is a certain problem I have regarding the film's final act.

~SPOILER WARNING BEYOND THIS POINT~

At the end of the film, the kids make their move on their parents. Surprisingly, after how perfectly handled the rest of the film is, this part leaves something to be desired. A more simple, direct treatment would have been exceedingly more terrifying. I like the concept that these kids are clever, possibly even savants, who have meticulously planned this grand salvo. However, the way it's done is just too much. The rest of the film is amazingly realistic, but this part is too complex, it's more like a slasher film or even some kind of Bourne-esque action movie: the kids set traps, drug their parents, beat them, tie them up, let them escape, toy with them, tie them up again, it's way too much to feel intuitively real. One or two of these aspects alone would have driven the point home while maintaining the illusion.

In any case, it was a smart, disturbing film with some of the best acting I've seen in found footage. Definitely recommended for people who don't mind being a tad disturbed.

Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)

Paranormal Activity 4

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

Overview: The series continues to get bigger and wilder with its complicated storyline, but PA4 veers from the tradition of the first 3 films enough to make it a genuinely exciting film to watch. It admirably avoids many of the downfalls that plagued Paranormal Activity 3.

Notice: No spoilers beyond basic expository information.

After watching the astoundingly terrifying Atrocious last weekend and being reunited with what true found footage film-making is all about, I was apprehensive about what Paranormal Activity 4 may be like. I knew it could never live up to the precedent so recently set by Atrocious. And sure enough, Paranormal Activity 4 is the least scary of all the Paranormal Activity films thus far. Never the less, the film really managed to impress me. I enjoyed it much more than the third film and I'm actually excited about seeing Paranormal Activity 5 next year (god willing). 

While PA3 was scarier, it was basically existing on borrowed ground. It retained the plot progression of the first two films while never even approaching the level of scares they achieved. So it felt like an exceedingly well-made Asylum film, the production values were good but it's a story you've already seen told, and told better. 

I read one review which stated PA4 is the first of the series to play it safe. On the contrary, PA4 was the first of the sequels to veer from the formula of the original film. When all you're dealing with is the demon, you pretty much know how it's inevitably going to end. After the first film you know pretty much how the demon operates and what to expect. But the fourth film enters a number of new elements which made the story's progression far less foreseeable, and for that I found this a very exciting film to watch.

The third film jumped the shark by injecting convoluted mythos into a series which had previously succeeded on a primal, intuitive level. But the fourth film transcended the misstep of the third by taking it even further and severing the series from its instinctual roots. In doing so it became something different entirely, and managed to be good on its own merits. No, it's certainly not as good as the first two PA films, but it was a very interesting movie, and it impressed me. I am actually really excited to be invested in the Paranormal Activity franchise again after the frustrating mess of misfires that confounded Paranormal Activity 3. 

At this point the Paranormal Activity mythos has become overwrought, bizarre, and a little bit nonsensical. But with PA4 it's finally reached that sweet spot where it's crazy enough to be interesting, without being too campy to take seriously. It's clear that the series will never return to the terror-inducing simplicity which made it famous in the first place, but that may be for the best, as it was never liable to recapture the spark of the first two films anyway. I'm genuinely excited to see it get even bigger and wilder as the film series goes on, because now I'm confident they can do it without pissing all over the franchise. It's gone into the territory where it's silly but still cool.

Atrocious (2010)

Atrocious

Rating: 5 stars out of 5.

Notice: No spoilers beyond basic expository information.

Overview: An unparalleled control of found footage basics informs this clever spin on the classic formula. A true and formidable successor to The Blair Witch Project. Atrocious is one of the scariest movies I've ever seen.

Three kids and their mom take a trip to a secluded summer home, right next to a big ole' labyrinth. An old legend states that if you get lost in the labyrinth at night, the ghost of Melinda will lead you out, and the kids want to film a self-styled documentary about her. Think you've heard this one before? Well, maybe you have. But Atrocious adds enough, and deviates enough, and executes itself well enough to stand on its own as a classic of found footage.

Even while I was scared shitless, which was quite often, I couldn't help repeating in my head "wow, this is a good feeling." What feeling, you might ask? The feeling that comes from a watching a found footage film where the filmmakers intrinsically understand what makes found footage good in the first place. It's been a long time since I've seen a found footage film that properly handles itself. I had seen so many midlevel entries into the genre since then, I forgot how amazing it was when you stumble upon a film that does it unmitigatingly right. There are so many mediocre films out there, I had honestly thought that I might be getting tired of found footage! Ahaha, oh my. Atrocious was brilliant.

The premise may mirror Blair Witch quite unsqueamishly, but the two films' respective atmospheres are well removed. The hedge maze labyrinth of Atrocious is a very different beast from the sprawling pines of Blair Witch. And without giving away too much, don't expect the story arcs to match either.

What sets Atrocious so far apart from its peers is its flawless command of the fundamentals. The fundamentals are what define any good found footage film, and a failure to grasp the fundamentals will invariably break one. But Atrocious nails it. The setting, god the setting, it's old school creepy. Their basement is full of stone walls and unsettling clutter, the labyrinth is full of gorgeously utiliized ancient stone benches and pyres and so forth, all of which give me the willies. The camera direction is spot-on, invoking [REC]'s unnerving corridors and the terrifying, shaking uncertainty cultivated by the masters of subtlety in The Wicksborro Incident.

Bottom line, Atrocious will never be quite as flawless as The Blair Witch Project, but there's no shame in being beaten by the best. There are a lot of good found footage films out there, however in the last few years these films have made their name by eschewing the formula rather than mastering it. [REC] was action-packed rather than slow-burning, V/H/S is the first notable anthology of the genre, and so on.

Atrocious doesn't do that, Atrocious makes its name by being able to weild this old form with genuine skill. The classic found footage formula is what got me into this genre, and at the end of the day there is nothing I like to see more. Problem is, despite how utterly simple it seems, most filmmakers fall flat on their face when attempting to copy it. Meanwhile Atrocious hits nearly every salvo with apparent ease, and for that it is superb.

I didn't even realize quite how much Atrocious had scared me until I went to bed that night and had a nightmare about it. This is a film that really stayed with me. Originally I was thinking of giving it 4 & 1/2 stars, but after noticing that it scarred me for life, I have to bump it up to 5. (I'm of course exaggerating, it only scarred me for a day..... so far. And I watched it yesterday.)