Taylor Ri'chard/Zach Davis' THE FINAL PROJECT: the latest found-footage fumble

God damn -- they just keep on a comin', these nothing-new-under-the-sun, hand-held, found-footage exercises that began 17 years ago with The Blair Witch Project. With the exception of the terrific, engaging, funny, creepy and surprising Afflicted, there has barely been a movie in this new genre worth its salt, including that original boring and pretty awful marketing success, Blair Witch. Now arrives a film that marks the biggest waste of time TrustMovies has spent viewing both this year and last (maybe longer, too): THE FINAL PROJECT, the title of which comes via the video project a group of supposed college kids (they look a lot older) must deliver to their professor in order to get a passing grade. (The best thing about the film is its smart poster art, shown above.)

As directed, co-produced and co-written by newcomer Taylor Ri'chard (shown at left) and co-written/co-produced by Zach Davis (also a newcomer), the film begins with some barely understandable babblings (due to perhaps deliberately crummy sound) from a shadowy figure wondering why these kids would deliberately go into a known-to-be-haunted house. As Austin Powers might say, "Oh, come on!"

All too soon we realize that the sound is not the only thing sub-standard here. The visuals are even worse.  And both remain so throughout. I still do not quite understand why the filmmakers who dabble in this fairly new genre insist on providing some of the worst dialog currently going -- crammed with unsubtle exposition and attempting "realism" before art or entertainment.

These found footage "epics" desperately need characters with a trace of intelligence and wit, so that they can mouth some dialog that's fun and clever for a change, rather than the supposedly "realistic" but uber-tiresome stuff that comes out of the mouths of these cretins. The difference between the characters (their concerns and their dialog) in a joy like Paper Towns or the formerly mentioned Afflicted and the kids seen and heard here gives us the difference between a real movie and a big, fat waste of time.

Worse yet: So little happens for such a long while that audiences are likely to tune out well before the first scare (a comic one) arrives at the 49-minute point.  There's another scary scare at the 69-minute point, if you're still around. The entire film lasts only 79 minutes, with an extra full minute or more devoted to a supposedly frightening scratching sound on the soundtrack while the screen is black -- then appears a visual of a final newspaper article about disappeared students. All this extra nonsense allows the movie to reach its requisite 80-odd-minute running time.

Not a scene in the film has any originality; it's all been-there/done-that -- from playing the game of "Never-have-I-ever" and the inevitable sound of things that go bump in the night to dialog like "Mama, don't worry. Nuthin's gonna happen" and "We're gonna get outta here! It's gonna be all right!" If we are told -- and you can bet we are -- about an apparition in a white dress, you can be sure we'll see her eventually (as in the window above). Some of the other things we hear about, we don't see -- Civil War soldiers, for instance -- but as the budget here is miniscule, we are not surprised.

For awhile, the movie appears as though it might be more a simple murder mystery than anything to do with occult.  But so poorly made is the film that you can't be certain this was an intentional red herring on the filmmakers' part or the result of sheer laziness and lack of talent. The acting, from all concerned, is only as good as the dialog and characteri-zations make possible. The most interesting performance comes from Arin Jones (shown center, below, and three photos above), as the movie's most mysterious presence.

The surprising thing about The Final Project, however, is that it comes from the distributor, CAVU Pictures. CAVU releases a diverse slate -- from art films (Sunset Edge) to documentaries (The Real Dirt on Farmer John) to genre movie (Lucky Bastard). What unites these is their quality and originality. So I don't know quite what to make of this company's latest, well..., "surprise."

In any case, the movie opens this Friday, February 12, in Houston and Atlanta, and the following Friday, February 19, in Broussard, Louisiana, and on March 4 in New York and Los Angeles, and then expands nationwide. You can view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters by clicking here. 

The Paz Brothers' horror, JERUZALEM offers sex, demons and Armageddon in Israel

Hand-held horror has come to the homeland. Oy.

JERUZALEM -- with that "z" replacing the usual "s" because, I suppose, it looks so cool on the poster image and will remind audiences of World War Z -- is the new film from The Paz Brothers, Doran and Yoav (pictured below, with Yoav on the left). In a word, it's a stinker. After a been-there/done-that opening, the movie seems to settle into a family/computer technology vibe. But only briefly, as our two heroines prepare for their trip to Israel, where, that opening has warned us, bad stuff is gonna happen.

In this film, hallelujah, zombies are given a religious/Biblical bent. (And isn't it about time!) Except that -- uh-oh -- wouldn't this mean that Lazarus must have been the original zombie? For Christ's sake, Jesus -- what did you do here? But I digress. What the two brothers have done is conflate horror movies and religious beliefs with technology, sex and a cell-phone call from dad at the most inappropriate moment. The Pazes' single addition to movie history may be their introduc-tion of "face recognition" into the plotline, but even here, you can see the "surprise" outcome a mile away.

Along with some clunky exposition and information about how The Jerusalem Syndrome can hit you once you reach the holy city, we're given the usual tourist stuff, with a little "Monkey's Paw"--Be Careful What You Wish For" tossed in for good measure (and telegraphed well before the film's halfway point).

The movie biggest problem is its build-up, which seems to take for-fucking-ever. The foreshadowing, too (as our junior- and high-school English teachers loved to point out) is happily present but rather too-insistently accounted for.

Once the action begins, things ought to crescendo. Instead, they keep stopping and starting, over and over, with one detour into a mental institution featuring a ridiculous I'm-not-gonna-leave-my-boyfriend development, after which, the film becomes a hysterically overwrought and very tiresome piece of silly horror, with nearly everything stolen from other, better movies. The creatures, too, once we finally see them (as above), are nothing to write home about and finally grow repetitive.

My favorite line of dialog has one of the girls asking the other, "You're OK, right?" when it is more than clear that she is already half-dead (or half zombie). It is probably not this actress' fault, but her character wins the stupidest, most annoying that I've seen on film in maybe a decade. Out of kindness and cordiality, I will not mention her name but will wait to do that if and when I see her again in something better. Fortunately, this actress is relegated to being the hand-held photographer throughout a great deal of the movie, so we see much less of her (though we do, unfortunately, hear her) than we do her friend.

That friend, and the supposed star of the movie, is a pretty blond actress named Yael Grobglas (shown above and at left, further above) and she does indeed steal what tiny "loot" the film possesses. Only the very up-to-the-minute technological look (or maybe it's only up-to-last-year, considering how fast technology changes) seems at all fresh here. The words FATAL ERROR -- which keep periodically appearing on screen after some technological glitch has occurred to the camera -- describes the entire film to a T. You'd think those Paz boys would have realized they were setting themselves up as their own punch line.

Jeruzalem, released via Epic Pictures Group and running 93 minutes (with enough actual content to fill maybe 45 of those minutes), is said on the distributor's web site to be opening theatrically tomorrow, Friday, January 22. In New York City, however, it does not open until January 29 at the Cinema Village. Whoops! Over the past 24 hours, it has even been removed from the Cinema Village's web site, so I guess we won't see it playing there. Elsewhere? Don't know, but as it is also simultaneously available via VOD, if you're curious, I'm sure you can easily find it. (I just checked Comcast's On-Demand list down here in Florida and, sure enough, there it is.)

The vampire genre wakes to exciting new life with Clif Prowse and Derek Lee's AFFLICTED; Q&A with these two multi-talented filmmakers

As dead-in-the-water as so many new zombie movies prove, the vampire genre hasn't exactly broken much new ground of late, either. Which makes AFFLICTED, the knock-your-socks-off new film from the Canadian duo Clif Prowse (below, left) and Derek Lee (below, right), all the more noteworthy and exciting.

This exceedingly smart combo of hand-held DIY movie-making and the horror genre proves both shockingly "real" -- this is a brilliant use of "home movies" to create a world of horror and wonder -- and a simply splendid handling of DIY to bypass a big budget and still produce the shock and awe genre fans demand.

Not being a filmmaker myself, TrustMovies doesn't quite understand the technical details of how the pair managed this so well. But they surely have. Beginning with a wonderful planned vacation to be taken by these two best friends, the pair then guides us through the paces of the early stage of that vacation -- with a little surprise tossed into the mix (Derek has a health problem) and then suddenly shifts into a whole new mode when one of our heroes is attacked and left for dead.

Except he's still alive. So he and his partner -- and we -- begin a journey that we've been on many times previous. The magic of this movie is due to how new the filmmakers' journey seems, while still adhering closely to the necessary genre conventions. And the "hand-held" nature of the whole adventure just makes it all the more immediate and scary.

There are times here when your heart will race and you breath will stop because you are so with what's going on that it will seem like you're watching the first movie of your life all over again. The filmmakers keep a nice balance, too, between storytelling, special effects, and effective pacing. Best of all, they save some of their really good stuff for the last so that the finale does not disappoint. In fact, it takes on a whole new idea for the Vampire genre -- one that I think might make an entire movie unto itself (spoiler just ahead): What if vampires chose their victims with an eye toward creating a better world?

In dividing up the work, Mr Lee gets the lead role, and he gives it all he's got (which is plenty). Mr. Prowse, as the "best friend," hangs back and provides support (up to a point). Both men are credited with direction and screenplay, and in the short Q&A below, they seem to answer easily together and for each other.

Although this is one of the few genre films to which I'd welcome a sequel, it seems the guys (see below) want to move on to other things. Well, at least they've given us one hell of go-round here. Afflicted -- another interesting movie from CBS Films, a distributor whose choice of material seems to be getting smarter and better, film by film -- opens this Friday, April 4, in various cities. The film will also be simultaneously available via VOD, and this is a movie that'll look just fine on your living room widescreen TV (that's the way we watched it, in fact.)

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Because the interview below contains a heavy spoiler, I'd suggest seeing the film first -- always a good idea -- before reading any more about it (here or elsewhere). In the short phone interview below, TrustMovies appears in boldface, while Prowse (shown below) and Lee (further below) are in standard typeface.

You're Canadians? 

Yep – from Vancouver.

How did the idea of this film first hit you. And which one of you?

We were making short films for about 10 years and decided it was time to make a feature. Initially, it was way too much money for what we wanted to do. So we had to scale down and go back the drawing board and think, "How could we actually do this?"

We thought about different genres: zombies, and some other ones, then we said, How about a vampire documentary? Yes! We knew vampires are so fantasy-based and yet so part of pop culture, so we thought, if we could tell our story through a reality lens, how great would that be?! Something like this might normally cost $5 to $10 million. We knew that Chronicle had cost $15, million. Ours cost, in Canadian dollars, $318,000. We first got a $200,000 grant from the government. so we had to raise $118,000 ourselves.

I’m really impressed with how well the hand-held, Blair Witchiness works with this genre -- making the special effects that much more special because they're so jumpy and odd and unexpected. Did you realize this going into it? And isn't it so much cheaper to create special effects in this manner? 

We figured that this would work well, combining these genres.

As to the cheapness part, we knew we had to be very sparse when we showed stuff on camera. What got us so excited about this movie was to tell a vampire story through a lens of reality, where the very texture of the image is telling your brain, this is real life. So Derek -- running so fast, and lifting the car and all that -- feels like a supernatural event. Yet it is shown in a way that just seems real.

That’s what happens to all of us when we watch a film, but until this one (even considering how effective Chronicle often was), we haven’t gotten it in such a “real-seeming” way. 

My one disappointment: Aren't pedophiles getting awfully tired and over-used as the villains du jour? For the sequel, will you please rid the world of more important problems. Like Republicans. Or maybe climate-change deniers and politicians who want to gut Social Security and food stamps. Please: get brave and current. Or, since you’re Canadians, go after the mayor of Toronto. You can do it! (The guys laugh.)

It’s funny, as a moral choice for the character, we needed to make it an easy choice. So we probably did go the too-easy route. But Cliff and I have talked about the philosophy of who a vampire might choose to kill to keep himself alive. So we did have discussions over this.

How did you decide which character would get killed and which would be the vampire hero?

We always knew that Derek would be the vampire, but he needed to have a foil. "Oh, perfect for Cliff!" That’s how it worked out.

If you don’t do a sequel, what’s next for you? 

We’re looking to do something different next time. Yes, we want to do something more cinematic, that delivers what we have always loved about movies: the chance to use music, dolly shots, and cast actors whom we can direct -- instead of ourselves. We’ve got in mind what we call an action film in a horror world. And it’s also a love story which could be fun. We get to play with everything we love – from the music to the camera to a great story and cast….

Well, good luck with whatever you do, and I wish you great success with this excellent first-full-length feature!

V/H/S: Found-footage, hexagonal horror movie (six directors), will scare you shitless

If you follow my reviews at all closely, you'll already know that I am not a big fan of hand-held camera-work, supposedly "found footage" (dat ol' Blair Witch agin!), and a lot of the other stuff that goes along with DIY movie-making. That said, if ever all the annoying-to-unnerving techniques used to "create your own movie" have managed to work together, often brilliantly, in one weird film, that would be V/H/S. This new compilation scare-movie, using six different directors and telling a bunch of jumbled-together tales, proves at once supremely old-fashioned and absolutely up-to-the-minute in the way it pulls us in, alternately amuses, bores and scares the bejeesus out of us, then finally kicks us into oblivion. All using the tried-and-true -- along with the brand-new.

I am now going to do something I almost never have done: using the film's press release to describe the framework here. "In V/H/S, a group of misfits are hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house in the countryside and acquire a rare tape. Upon searching the house, the guys are confronted with a dead body, a hub of old televisions and an endless supply of cryptic footage, each video stranger and more inexplicable than the last...." I do this for you because I found the framework the most confusing part of the film and probably would not have understood much of the above from what I saw in the film itself.

Once I got into the individual stories, however, I could -- sometimes barely -- get my bearings enough to enjoy what was going on. If this sounds off-putting, don't worry: It works better than you'll imagine because confusion is actually part of the enjoyment here. When we're off balance, the only slightly scary can become much more so.

Other than the wrap-around framework, there are five stories contained in the film. While some work better than others, not a one falls flat and at least a couple are supremely creepy. The directors include, from beginning segment to end, Adam Wingard (A Horrible Way to Die), David Bruckner (The Signal), Ti West (The Innkeepers), Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead), Joe Swanberg (Alexander the Last) and Radio Silence. (That final "name" is actually a group made up of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez and Chad Villella, so I guess you could properly say that this movie has nine directors.)

Bruckner, McQuaid, West and Wingard all have bonafides in the fright department; Swanberg, who doesn't (though some people find his films horrors of a sort), fits into things perfectly well, while the Radio Silence guys, reasonably new to film-making, come through just fine. I'll leave each plot for you to discover, but will say that, for sheer off-balance fear, Bruckner and the Radio Silence Boys got me where it hurts. Ti West, of all people, manages to scare us on a deeper psychological level, with Swanberg (below) one of the stars in his segment.

Not all of this 93-minute movie works, but when it does, it has you, one claw around your throat, the other caressing your balls. And as annoying as those hand-held moments can be, I think you'll agree that, over all, you ain't seen nothin' quite like this one.

V/H/S, via Magnolia Pictures' Magnet division, opens Friday, October 5, all over the country, in a limited release and in a surprising number of cities. In New York City, it will open at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, and you can take a look at all other currently scheduled playdates (with cities and theaters) by clicking here. Meanwhile, as is often the case with Magnolia's movies, it has already been playing via VOD for nearly the past two months.