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.)

[REC] (2007)

[REC]

Rating: Five stars out of five.

Note: No substantial spoilers beyond expository information you may read on the back of the case or see in a trailer.

Overview: Claustrophobic, terrifying, and with a decent amount of action, this is immaculate proof that found footage needn't always rely on subtle build-up and people walking around doing nothing. It'll be a ten decades before there's a more superbly-crafted zombie film in the found footage genre.

I have absolutely no complaints about this film. [Rec] is quite possibly the perfect hybrid of found footage and zombie. I can honestly say I think it will be many moons before anyone creates a found footage zombie movie that is better than [Rec].

[Rec]'s story begins with the crew of a late-night television news program called "While You're Asleep." Tonight they are at a Fire Station in order to record the nighttime duties of firefighters. But when they get a routine call to rescue an old lady who apparently had a serious fall in an apartment building, things take a turn for the grim as the whole building is forcibly quarantined and an outbreak occurs of a disease turning residents into flesh-eating zombie-like monsters.

[Rec] handles its simple premise with absolute mastery, crafting truly terrifying creatures, pulse-pumping action, and believable interactions between our faux-verite characters. One of the most difficult questions a found footage film must attempt to answer, is why our protagonist continues to film even as the scenario escalates into pandemonium and death. [Rec] provides perhaps one of the best answers to this question. As journalists, the crew of "While You're Asleep" at first is bound to consider this an opportunity for some award winning on location journalism. As the situation escalates and it no longer is clear whether they will make it out alive, the tape becomes assurance that what has happened to them (arguably with the government having been implicit in it), will not be overlooked.

In the same sense that Cloverfield could have been an incredible reboot to the American Godzilla, I can only imagine how happy Resident Evil fans would have been to receive [Rec] as the iconic game's film incarnation. [Rec] may represent the closest palatable film experience to that of playing a good Resident Evil game.... the much-noted claustrophobic atmosphere and the restricted locale of the dusty apartment complex is gorgeously reminiscent of the original Resident Evil's haunted mansion setting.

The many treks through blackened hallways dreading what horrible thing will jump out at you next continues the Resident Evil feel (in addition to being exceedingly creepy), but perhaps the best allusion to the Resident Evil format is the way information is disseminated. In a regular film, we tend to have a decent overview of the situation, whereas in [Rec] you find clues bit by bit while searching through the wreckage and encountering curious characters. It's a chillingly exciting film experience, and one I enjoy going back to again and again. It increases the feeling of realism and urgency in the film probably as much as the found footage style in the first place.

A Spanish film, [Rec] was remade for the United States into Quarantine, which itself had a sequel unrelated to [Rec] where an outbreak occurs on a plane. Quarantine 2: Terminal is well-regarded, although I don't believe it's found footage. [Rec] also has a sequel and two further sequels upcoming..