A flawed and rough
film, however
undeniably effective in it's atmosphere and character building.
This film has been idealised, demonized and mythicised since it's release in 1999. With the possible exception of Scream, there is no other horror film in the past two decades that has been both this influential, and this destructive. This film can both be credited with the creation of a bold new stylistic era of horror filmmaking, found footage, and the birth of a destructive and cliché template for lazy filmmaking, found footage. The genre this film helped to popularise has certainly had a profound, and in my opinion largely negative, impact on the current landscape of western horror. However how does the film itself hold up? Well in my opinion, better than expected.
The film's largest flaw is it's slow and clunky opening. A large amount of time is spent in the hometown of the three main characters and little of substance occurs. These sequences do little to enhance the film's narrative or atmosphere and today are quite boring to watch. The only purpose these scenes have was to contribute to the film's viral marketing campaign, which successfully tricked thousands into believing the events of the film were real. The faux documentary feel of the opening adds credibility to this trickery, however from the perspective of somebody who was not affected by the marketing, these scenes do little other than damage the film's overall pacing.
After this weak start, the film truly begins to unfold. Our three main characters all feel like real people and they are clearly defined from each other. The bulk of the film follows the three amateur filmmakers and their slow descent into madness and terror. Every step of this descent is understandable and the reactions of the characters to their increasingly hostile environment is eerily relatable, to the point where I found myself wondering how I would react in a similar situation. This is the main reason why the film works, we are scared because the characters feel real and are convincingly terrified. Their situation is caused by a mixture of simple incompetence and paranormal interference and I feel there is a conversation to be had about which of those two elements contributed most to their demise. Overall the simple and eerie portrayal of the characters hits home, they feel like people the audience could have genuinely known rather than actors with a script.
The film is also able to achieve incredible things with very little. This is perhaps the most stripped down mode of horror filmmaking imaginable, scaring the audience with sounds, stones and sticks. As described above, the effect is largely achieved due to the strongly defined and well acted characters, however there is also a basic creepiness to these elements. The sounds we hear from within the tent are horrifying and grotesque, the sticks genuinely form occultic and unnerving images and begin to resemble some kinda of abomination of nature. The film's cinematography is at it's strongest as it fetishisticly sweeps over the bundles of twigs suspended in the tress. The iconic symbol that the film spearheaded it's marketicing with is perhaps the strongest example of this eerie imagery.
Overall I would call this film a near masterpiece. My enjoyment is somewhat tainted by the scourge of largely inferior found footage knockoffs which followed, along with the undeniably weak opening ten minutes. However if you are able to look past these hindrances, you will find a powerful and still largely unique horror experience.
By Jack D. Phillips
A Zoom Film Review
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