Found Footage (2011)

A tight hour-long movie depicting the transformation into a documentarian serial killer of adult loser Darius (Matt Doran), Samuel Bartlett and Matt Doran's "Found Footage" takes a grim, gritty approach to its subject matter that leaves a bad taste in the mouth the way it really should. Very underrated, it's a no-frills production that, while not quite on the level of "The Poughkeepsie Tapes", creates a similar sense of impending dread as it moves briskly to its inevitable and bloody conclusion, in which Darius' self-destruction is brutally realised. There's a rawness and realism to this flick that found footage movies ought to aspire towards, and it's something I always appreciate in these kind of movies, even when it makes them something of an acquired taste. Even if you're not a weirdo like me, I recommend giving it a chance.

When Evil Lurks (2023)

After finding a scene of carnage and following its trail to a home where a demon-infected man lays on the precipice of death, a pair of brothers haltingly attempt to expel, escape, and ultimately confront an infectious evil in Demian Rugna's "When Evil Lurks", an Argentinian horror movie that combines foreboding atmosphere and unflinching gore to become one of the best horror movies of the year. Of course, it also helps greatly (for this reviewer at least) that the movie is another entry into the "fuck them kids" canon, as ready to subject its younger characters to the horror and danger surrounding them as it is the adults whose understanding of the basic phenomena they're confronted with only seems to exacerbate the suffering they must eventually endure. This is a bleak, bloody movie that -- like this year's "Evil Dead Rise", "Saw X" and "Talk to Me" -- actually deserves the kind of praise it's been getting, not least because of the great leading performances by Ezequiel Rodriguez and Demian Salomon as the protagonist brothers whose psychological vulnerabilities are abused by their demonic foe in a way that makes David Gordon Green's "The Exorcist: Believer" look even more puny by comparison. An excellent movie that all horror fans should check out.

The Who Incident (2023)

I'm a sucker for found footage movies featuring aliens, but even I have a breaking point. Enter "The Who Incident", a micro-budget effort from Ron Chevarie in which he plays one half of a middle-aged hippie couple beset by paranormal events while attempting to celebrate their 20th anniversary. There's some mystery in how an owl toy beloved to the husband's deceased father is connected to the lights and noises afflicting the couple, but ultimately the real mystery is how and why this movie got made. To call the acting amateurish would be an understatement and the script genuinely feels like it was written by AI, with the characters very awkwardly interacting with each other while dropping anchor-heavy exposition and pointlessly narrating everything they see and do throughout. Then -- after what seems like an interminable wait that's actually about seventy minutes -- come what could very loosely be called the special effects, during a climax that made me laugh but was apparently supposed to be a creepy pay-off to the dull movie preceding it. To be fair, there is an image of an owl in there that kind of works, but it's quickly replaced by, well, something much less impressive (see images below). There's also another scene in which one of the characters investigates noises in the woods surrounding their house using night-vision that's actually pretty creepy. Otherwise, this is a woeful movie that might have been interesting if those behind it recognised their limitations, hired a couple of their more talented friends, and went with a "less is more" approach in the closing minutes.

(WARNING: Images below contain spoilers!!!)

The Mean One (2022)

In the sleepy mountain town of Newville, little Cindy watches in horror as her mother falls victim to a green monster in a Santa costume. Skip forward two decades and Cindy (Krystle Martin) is back in town, all jacked up and ready to hunt down the so-called 'mean one' after he shows up again to off her father. Along the way there's some drama about a corrupt Mayor overseeing a cover-up of the Mean One's other kills that will intersect with Cindy's revenge arc. So goes "The Mean One", a Christmas horror that turned the Grinch into a bloodthirsty slasher before "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey" was even a twinkle in an opportunistic filmmaker's eye. Alas, it's not much better than the Pooh movie with its CGI kills, choppy editing and dubious acting performances. David Howard Thornton may have turned Art the Clown of the "Terrifier" movies into a cult figure, but he had his hands tied playing the equally mute Mean One in a movie with less budget and less delirious excess. Take away the trimmings and this is run-of-the-mill budget horror, not nearly as bad as some, but as mediocre as it is pointless.

It's a Wonderful Knife (2023)

A fun Christmastime slasher that ultimately burns itself out in the home stretch, "It's a Wonderful Knife" finds down-in-the-dumps Winnie Carruthers (Jane Widdop) inadvertently wishing herself into an alternate reality where she didn't previously exist and where the white-costumed serial killer she helped thwart a year earlier is still at large, only there's more mystery to his identity than in Winnie's original reality. Partnering up with misfit Bernie (Jess McLeod), Winnie sets out to halt the bloodbath and return to her own reality. Along the way, we get some standard, if well-shot kills and another vintage Justin Long performance, although I'm personally not a massive fan of slasher movies that try to compensate for their lack of mystery with "novel" spins on the genre that don't quite scare or entertain like more classic efforts. With shades of "Happy Death Day", the recent "Totally Killer" and of course "It's a Wonderful Life", director Tyler MacIntyre's film keeps you reasonably well engaged for most of the duration, but unfortunately it's only ever headed to an anti-climax that makes you pine for the vastly more fulfilling last acts of a "Scream" or "Urban Legend". It's still a good movie with a very good final girl in the form of Jane Widdop, but it could have been more.