Jun 2, 2012

IT CONTINUES...

Alexander Kinyua Ate Kujoe Agyei-Kodie's Brain, Heart In Maryland, Cops Say

In yet another horrifying incident of human flesh-eating this week, a student in Maryland allegedly admitted to devouring his roommate's brain and heart.

Alexander Kinyua, a 21-year-old Morgan State University student, admitted to murdering his roommate Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie, who was reported missing last Friday, cops told the Baltimore Sun.

Alexander Kinyua allegedly admitted to killing 
his roommate, then eating his heart and 
portions of his brain.

Kinyua's father called police late Tuesday night when Kinyua's brother reportedly found human remains -- a head and two hands -- in a metal tin in the basement. The brother and father left the room for a short time, but when they came back, the body parts had been moved and Kinyua was washing out the tin, the paper reported.

Officers searched the house and arrested Kinyua. The man allegedly confessed a shocking revelation: not only had he killed Agyei-Kodie by cutting him up with a knife and then dismembered him, he ingested parts of the victim's brain and all of his heart. He then allegedly dropped most of the remains in a Dumpster behind a church in Joppatowne.

It's yet unclear what Kinyua's motive may have been, but he was charged with first-degree murder on Wednesday. In another incident on May 20, he was charged with first-degree assault when he allegedly beat a fellow student randomly with a baseball bat and then fled into the woods.

The gruesome case comes on the heels of a similar attack in Miami on Saturday, in which Rudy Eugene, 31, was killed by cops while in the process of chewing off most of a homeless man's face.

Ronald Poppo, 65, is alive, but the bizarre flesh-eating attack left doctors with a literal puzzle in how to put his face back together.



May 30, 2012

REVIEW: ABRAHAM LINCOLN VS. ZOMBIES


Someone fetch Lincoln his parcel. He’s got some ghoul heads to chop off.

Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies just might be the boldest move from The Asylum to date (though perhaps not as bold as their 9/11 movie, but, you know). The Asylum has received some pretty substantial hate over the years for their shameless direct-to-video rip-offs of big budget and theatrical horror remakes. (Depending on where the lawsuit stands, they may or may not currently have American Battleship on shelves while the “real” Battleship is currently sinking in theaters.) The Asylum’s defense of this tactic has always been that they were/are merely doing the same thing big Hollywood was doing – giving audiences a movie they’ve already seen, but with a similar sounding title.

Using that argument, there really is no excuse for Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, their take on the bigger-budgeted Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer, hitting theaters soon. To rip off such an absurd concept and title…that goes above and beyond simply pointing and laughing at a major studio-produced remake. But so far they’ve somehow gotten away scot-free, and with this latest release they’ve added just one more film to their ever-growing archives. Their business model seems a successful one: their casts have gone from complete unknowns to recognizable actors who are either in on the joke or desperate for work.

With that said, Lincoln Vs. Zombies is the best film from The Asylum's hovering-somewhere-over-100-film archive. I’ve seen a lot of The Asylum’s films, and they’ve all left me in various levels of coma. But this one, however…it was pretty watchable. I don’t think I was left injured at all.


The title should more than clue you in what it's about, but the year is 1863, and we find Lincoln dealing not just with the confederacy, but a growing army of the undead. And he’s not the only one fighting the battle. Joining Lincoln are General Stonewall Jackson (leader of the confederate army), Pat Garret (infamous assassin of Billy the Kid) and even a very young and completely unnecessary Teddy Roosevelt, among others whose names the more learned of you should recognize.

When word reaches Lincoln that soldiers “infected” with some kind of disease are all over Fort Pulaski, eating faces and committing all sorts of zombtrocities, he dispatches a group of 12 men (with him at the helm) to visit the fort and see what’s the what. Well, they see what’s the what, all right. GHOULS. Wearing old-fashioned Civil War-era garb and huge bow ties.

As the 12 men begin to die off, one of them begins to doubt Lincoln’s tactics. He thinks the problem could be better taken care of. He’s an actor, you see…with a great big bushy mustache and a small, wooden Derringer. If you stayed awake for five minutes during your American history class, you can see where this is going.

Lincoln vs. Zombies is perfectly disposable entertainment. After seeing the promotional materials for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer (you know, the “real” Lincoln movie), I will say this: Bill Oberst Jr. plays a far more convincing Lincoln than that nine-year-old kid they found for the Tim Burton-produced film (although with The Asylum's proven relationship with genre legend Lance Henriksen, why the hell didn't they call him??). While he's forced to spit out some cheesy dialogue, his performance is rather straight forward and feels quite genuine. He approaches the "character" as if he were in a more legitimate project. It doesn't stray too far from all the other Lincolns we've seen over the years, but it shouldn't have to. Plus it’s genuinely fun seeing him lop off heads with his switchblade scythe, which impossibly fits into and disappears within the confines of his suit jacket as if we were in a cartoon. And I guess we are.

Some of LvsZ might make you groan. Even though the film’s concept is as subtle as a sledgehammer to a bucket of testicles, Lincoln handing young Roosevelt a shovel and telling him to “speak softly and carry a big stick,” or swinging a scythe at a ghoul head and bellowing “emancipate this!” is still obnoxiously on the nose. If your audience is groaning during a movie with this as your concept, you may have gone too far.

The zombie's make up effects are fairly simple, but effective. The gore effects are fun, if perhaps limited in scope. The gushing blood and flying heads are CGI, and there’s plenty of both.

The last act of the film is shot in the real Fort Pulaski, located in Savannah, and this touch of real history is appreciated, so I'll ignore the fact that the structure clearly showcases all two hundred of its years, and not the thirty it would have been at that time. And I can't say I blame them for not "touching up" any of their surroundings, as I'm sure such a thing would have been forbidden by the National Parks Service. It's a minor complaint, really, given the fort's beauty.

I will definitely say this: LvsZ doesn't end in a way that's indicative of the kind of film it is, or of the kinds of film The Asylum makes. In fact, it's a rather poignant ending that makes you look at the real-life assassination of Abraham Lincoln in a different way. It's certainly not the way I expected an otherwise silly and over-the-top film to end. I suppose there are folks out there who will lambaste the film's plot, calling it disrespectful to the memory of one of our country's greatest leaders, but the ending chosen allows Lincoln some dignity. Not bad for a movie that has something like 50 severed heads and some truly horrendous fake beards.

Sic semper Asylum.

But here is my main gripe:

Historical Figure + Monsters = a really cheap and stupid concept for a movie, regardless of who is producing it. I’m not in too big of a hurry to see the “real” Lincoln movie, but I will say this: its concept is so daringly stupid that it demands a certain kind of respect from the audience. Filmmakers rip off Halloween or Paranormal Activity over and over again, and no one (beyond their annoyance) can muster the enthusiasm to care. And they will continue to be ripped off from now until the end of time because their concepts are (now) very basic. But a former dead president re-imagined as an undead-killing vigilante, stupid as the concept may be, is "special," and as such it does feel a little cheap that it's been re-appropriated in a sort of "ha ha, we're first"-type move. (Although the more films out there bringing exposure to Abraham Lincoln, wildly inaccurate and ludicrous as they may be, the better. I say this because “these kids” today are so massively unaware that they thought Titanic was just a movie, and not based on something that actually happened, so here’s hoping they're aware Lincoln was, ya know, a real dude).

The Asylum’s films have been getting better…in terms of their production levels, cast, and even their ability to produce original (scream!) concepts. I hear they might even be prepping their first theatrical release.

If you're not familiar with The Asylum's repertoire, watch Lincoln vs. Zombies on streaming if you can, or make it a one-night rental from Redbox. If you consider yourself a fan of the mini (mini mini) studio, you'll have a good time with this one. It doesn't ask a lot of you, nor should you of it.


May 29, 2012

UNSUNG HORRORS: THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre.

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now… one at a time.

Dir. Mark Pellington
2002
Sony
United States

I’m not entirely sure audiences knew what they were in for when The Mothman Prophecies hit theaters in the winter of 2002. Once marketing for the film was underway, the mythical (?) and titular antagonist of the film had effortlessly achieved a shape and rictus based on the title alone; audiences concocted in their mind a hulking and unnatural monster that was man-shaped, but sprouted wings and towered over even the tallest person who had claimed to see the monster with their own eyes. The opening weekend of The Mothman Prophecies followed, by less than five months, another horror film that featured a “similar” monster, insofar as the limited imaginations of audiences allowed. It was called “the Creeper,” from the very, very stupid Jeepers Creepers. I honestly believe audiences just weren’t ready for The Mothman Prophecies, which snuck into theaters under the guise of being a more traditional monster movie and was something else entirely.

John Klein (Richard Gere) is a reporter for The Washington Post. He lives in Georgetown with his incredibly gorgeous wife, Mary (Debra Messing). In addition to his role as a reporter, he casually appears on a national television show called “D.C. Review” to discuss politics, but it ain’t no thang. Despite his job and his hot wife, he’s pretty down to earth and not at all arrogant. Because of his career, the Kleins seem to be doing quite well, financially; especially since the film opens with the couple shopping for a new house. They share a good life, and their love is genuine.

But this life they’ve built together, and the future they dream of with infectious enthusiasm, all comes crashing down one cold night as the couple drives home after picking out their dream house. A flash of something murky with glowing red eyes flies at the car with immense speed and causes Mary to lose control. Her head cracks against the window with a sickening shattering of glass, and John immediately rushes her to the hospital, where she, seemingly delirious from the accident, says to John, “you didn’t see it, did you?” Assuming that she is in shock from the accident, he can only tell her no, and ask her what it is she thinks she saw. The question seems impossible to answer, and so she cannot, and tears fill her red, terrified eyes. John goes back to the scene of the accident to see if he can locate the “it” of which Mary speaks. He sees only some glowing red lights atop a construction barrier…and a v-shaped layer of burn residue on the car’s grill.

Mary soon passes away (on Christmas Eve no less); not from the accident, but from the incredibly rare brain tumor (called glioblastoma) growing inside her, and had only been discovered during routine hospital tests following the accident. A notebook found in her hotel room features frantic and hand-scrawled sketches of “angels,” as an orderly describes…but these drawings don’t look angelic at all. They show a dark figure with angry features and wings like a butterfly.


Two years pass. Klein remains isolated and melancholic, turning down offers from friends to be set up on dates. He smiles as he declines, pretending to be amused by the prospect instead of outright destroyed; his sadness is paramount. An impromptu late-night drive to prep for an interview with the Virginian governor begins Klein’s journey into the world of Indrid Cold, aka the mothman. It begins in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where he meets Connie Mills (Laura Linney), a police sergeant, after a surreal “misunderstanding” at the home of a local named Gordon Smallwood (the always wonderful Will Patton.) You see, after Klein’s car broke down just outside Gordon’s house at 2:30 a.m., he knocked on the door to see about using their phone. He has a shotgun shoved in his face for his troubles and is forced into the bathroom (which is a somewhat creepy place to force a man you’ve captured, once you realize it would be the easiest place to clean...should someone get their head blown off). But instead of Gordon being the “bad guy,” he immediately calls Sgt. Mills and explains to her that Klein has apparently knocked on his door the past two nights, at the same time, asking to use the phone. Even though the audience and John know that’s not true, Gordon seems to believe it intensely. But how could that be? How can John have been in two places at once? How is it John impossibly traveled over 400 miles in just 90 minutes when ordinarily it would have taken six hours? How did he end up in damn-near Ohio when he was aiming for Richmond, Virginia? Just what the fuck is going on in Point Pleasant?

And so it begins.

John and Connie begin to compare notes. She explains that Point Pleasant has been plagued for the past month or so with weird sightings and complaints—of “mothlike” figures with “red eyes;” strange lights; phone calls filled with high-pitched electronic shrieks. After visiting one of the eyewitnesses, John sees burn residue on a nearby tree that matches what he saw on their car the night of Mary’s crash. And the witness descriptions of the figure itself seem to match Mary’s sketches beat for beat. Whatever’s going on in Point Pleasant has John’s full attention.

John and Gordon begin an uneasy friendship. They begin to depend on each other, trying to figure out this puzzle that the mothman has created. What is it? What does it want? Is it even real?

One night Gordon claims to see a reflection in his bathroom mirror that is not his own, and a howling voice coming out of his sink drain that says the same words over and over for an hour: “Do not be afraid. 99 will die. Denver 9.”

The next day they see the news report: a plane flying out of Denver, Concorde 9, has crashed, killing all 99 passengers on board.


For whatever reason the mothman seems to be warning people of impending disasters, which on the surface doesn’t seem to be something to fear. So then why is the mothman so haunting and strange? Why have people been left physically harmed from its presence?

John seeks out a man named Alexander Leek (a meta-pseudonym for John Keel, author of the book which inspired The Mothman Prophecies.) Leek is a paranoid, afraid, and unstable man. He’s aware of the mothman and of its repertoire. He explains that the mothman doesn't have one form; that it appears in certain ways to certain people based on their ability to perceive what they are seeing. He describes it as an advanced being, observing our lives from afar. John demands to know why the mothman doesn’t just come down and explain itself, and make clear what it wants. Leek responds, “You’re more advanced than a cockroach. Have you ever tried explaining yourself to one?”

The Mothman Prophecies, from the first minute to the last, is draped in an incredibly palpable feeling of eeriness. It doesn’t let up, even in the lightest moments of the film. And the mothman, though never clearly seen beyond quick flashes and fuzzy recollections, is a constant presence. He hovers outside every window, diving in and flying away. The camera moves fluidly to achieve this feeling, especially when swooping rapidly from behind John as he sits in a desolate park. John turns, sensing something behind him, but of course he sees nothing.

If you were to ask me who I felt were some of the most underrated modern directors of our time, Mark Pellington would be on that list. Many directors are accused of exhibiting only style over substance (Zack Snyder comes to mind, as do the Wachowsi Bros.), and while that may be also true of Pellington, that’s only because the man hasn’t been given enough chances to show what he’s got. His 1999 effort, Arlington Road, was an incredibly thrilling and effective look at terrorism on American soil. Following on the heels of the Oklahoma City bombing, which claimed 168 lives, it starred Jeff Bridges as a college professor who slowly begins to realize that his next-door neighbor (Tim Robbins) is a terrorist. It is a nerve-wracking and highly emotional film with a gangbusters performance from Bridges, and its bleak ending is especially powerful. While it wasn’t Pellington’s first effort behind the camera, it had been and probably remains his most high-profile film. Despite the so-so haul that Arlington took in at the box office (it barely recouped its budget), Pellington secured Mothman as his next gig. It would be a film that received so-so notices from critics as well as middling box office returns (though his direction would be praised by Roger Ebert, who lamented that his tremendous skills behind the camera had been wasted on a sub-par screenplay. Agree to disagree.).


Pellington’s direction in Mothman is the strongest of his career. He takes a not-so-traditional concept for a horror movie, steeping it in paranoia and mood, and drenches the film in bleak tones. Pale blues and stark whites litter the screen, and he shoves the bone-crunching harsh winter of Point Pleasant directly into your face. Cold weather has always been intrinsically more effective for a horror film (The Shining, The Thing), and the harsh winds and shorter days drive Point Pleasant citizens off the streets and into their houses, leaving the town at night seemingly deserted.

As mentioned previously, Pellington uses the camera to invoke the presence of mothman whenever appropriate. The camera doesn't move as it has in other films; it starts at ground level and hovers around people’s faces, as if constantly moving around to study them, before shooting off into the sky. It swoops in on John as he stares forlornly out a skywalk window, and before he is whisked away by a doctor, the camera moves just as quickly away again, as if taking off back into the night.

Eyewitness accounts of Indrid Cold are painted with swirling and red-tinted light, and each recollection of the encounter are simplistically but eerily effective. There are several sequences peppered throughout the film that pull you in and give you the chills, regardless if you’ve let the film take you where it had intended. The most effective sequence in the film has Klein alone in his dingy and dark motel room, and Indrid Cold calling him on the phone. Klein, for personal and obsessive reasons that have nothing to do with all he has learned, but everything to do with his deceased wife, refuses to believe Indrid is the mythical figure everyone in Point Pleasant seems to believe. And so Klein rushes around the room, testing Cold’s so-called omniscience:

Where is my watch?

 In your shoe...under the bed.

What’s in my hand?

Chaaaapstick.

[grabbing a book] Third line, page fifty one?

"A broken smile beneath her whispered wings."

They are things Indrid couldn’t possible know, but he somehow does. It’s one of my favorite scenes in any film, grippingly directed with feverish and chilly eeriness.


I have not read the book of the same name by John Keel, but I can assume that screenwriter Richard Hatem took what was most assuredly a "non-fiction" book and created a narrative, featuring characters we could follow in order to experience the strange goings-on of Point Pleasant. The events featured in the film allegedly took place during the 1960s, but were updated to present times for the 2002 film. From what I’ve learned about mothman from other sources (there is an exhaustive, almost three-hour documentary called Eyes of the Mothman, which tells you everything you’ve ever wanted to know), The Mothman Prophecies includes many of the events that were said to have taken place in Point Pleasant.

As for Richard Gere as an actor, I can’t say I’m either a supporter or a detractor. The film for which he received the highest accolades of his career, American Gigolo, was a film for which I could barely stay awake, and except for his wonderful and evolving performance in Primal Fear (his first on-screen pairing with Laura Linney), I haven’t exactly been the ideal demographic for his last decade of film roles. His performance in Mothman, however, is certainly worth praising. He plays a man so emotionally stricken by the death of his wife that he falls effortlessly into the hands of Indrid Cold, who uses Mary’s image to fuck with his mind. His performance is split right down the middle, maintaining his objectivity as an investigative journalist, but also allowing himself up be swept up into the town’s paranoia and outright fear of this mystical figure. Klein is emotionally invested in the town’s victimization as well as his own personal heartache, but at the same time he sees a mystery that needs to be solved, so much that he’s willing to abandon his position at The Washington Post. His obsession with the mothman fuels him and gives him purpose, because to him, it’s not just about finding out who this “man” is, but really finding out what he had to do with his wife’s death…if he even did. It’s an interesting conflict, in that we as the audience don’t know when the investigation stops being objective and starts becoming personal.


I love Laura Linney. I will always and forever love anything she does; she’s as beautiful as she is talented. While this isn’t her best role (for me personally, that would be the criminally under-seen You Can Count On Me), it’s certainly not a bad one. In this day and age, actors are woefully miscast for their roles, taking on characters for which they are not suited whatsoever (my personal favorite is Tara Reid as a paleontologist in the ludicrous Alone in the Dark), but Linney believably embodies a small-town citizen who knows all her people by name. In the film she is strong and intelligent, but never abandons the soft side that the audience as well as Klein depends on. Linney isn’t set up as the generic romantic interest…just a potential one. In the last act of the film, it’s clear that Linney cares for John. What’s unclear is the kind of companionship she is offering him. Is she there for him as a friend? Or more? The audience is never let in on that secret, but what we do know is it’s up to Klein to answer the phone.

Will Patton is among my favorite character actors, and his career has touched down in almost every genre: horror/thriller with fellow Unsung Horror Copycat and The Fourth Kind, action with Armageddon, and drama with Brooklyn’s Finest (again with Gere). His role here is quiet and understated, but extremely evocative of fear. He doesn’t just look afraid, he is afraid. He speaks in whispers, as if fearful that Indrid Cold will hear him and come looking for him.


The score by tomandandy is appropriately droning and moody. There's not much "musically" going on with their score, but that doesn't mean it's not an effective one. Every inch of the film is tinged with their electronic humming, brimming with psychedelic and unusual choices...and it all comes to a head at the bridge finale, where their pulse-pounding music makes the sequence ten times more powerful. (Seriously, if you don't have chills throughout this entire sequence, you're not alive.) 

While I can understand people not liking The Mothman Prophecies, I certainly can’t condone it. No, it’s not your typical rubber-suit monster streaking through town and punching off heads. It doesn’t swoop down from the skies and clutch a baby in its talons before disappearing into the night. Mothman’s presence is psychological. It takes the form of other people to get inside their heads. The human race is a rat in a maze, and the mothman gets its rocks off on providing us with information and seeing how we react. Yes, the mothman does warn of impending disasters, but we never get the sense it’s because of the goodness of its heart. It’s more that it wants to see if we’re smart enough to recognize the hints it leaves us; it wants to see what choices we make; it wants to see if the human race is worth the mark we're leaving on the universe.

Modern movie audiences don’t like ambiguous films, and even more, ambiguous endings. Sure, they love the film if it’s something like Inception, where people shoot guns and float around for hours at a time, because it’s provided all the thrills necessary for a typical mainstream film. But The Mothman Prophecies is a slow burn. It starts off as a slow burn, and except for the wonderful and heart-pumping bridge climax, it remains a slow burn. Most people just don’t have the patience for films that take their time, but for those that do, I’m confident that The Mothman Prophecies is a film that will remain effective for years to come.

May 28, 2012

IT BEGINS...

Naked Man Allegedly Eating Victim's Face Shot And Killed By Miami Police

One man is dead and another hospitalized after a bizarre assault off Miami's MacArthur Causeway reportedly forced a police officer to open fire.

City of Miami police say the incident began Saturday afternoon about 2 p.m. when an officer responded to reports of 2 men fighting in the bike path of the Biscayne Boulevard exit ramp, alongside the Miami Herald's parking garage. There, according to the Herald, the officer observed a naked man eating another man's face:
The officer...approached and saw that the naked man was actually chewing the other man's head, according to witnesses. The officer ordered the naked man to back away, and when he continued the assault, the officer shot him.
The attacker continued to eat the man, despite being shot, forcing the officer to continue firing. Witnesses said they heard at least a half dozen shots.
According to CBS Miami, police sources said the victim had "virtually no face" and was unrecognizable.

"[Officers] attempted to separate them, there was some sort of confrontation," Miami Police spokesman Willie Moreno told Local10.

Police said his victim was transported to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Officials have yet to identify the officer involved, the deceased, or the victim. The incident snarled traffic on the causeway for hours during busy Memorial Day weekend as multiple lanes of vehicles were routed around the crime scene.

 Source

May 26, 2012

REVIEW: EVIDENCE


Evidence is a wild ride. Completely unpredictable, and perhaps purposely misleading, it takes you in a direction you don't expect. While it does fall victim to some of the more usual found footage pitfalls, it's extremely rewarding to the viewer who sticks with it until the end.

The set up to Evidence is sinfully basic, so much to the point that it might even be offensive. Oh, what's that? Two guys and their girlfriends are going camping in the woods and one of them is going to film it because he wants to inexplicably document his friend's first camping trip? Mm, sounds like...the dullest documentary ever.

Our young cast ranges from sweet to abrasive, but never seem disingenuous. Is it easy to accept that the guy who runs the camera for the first act of the film is kind of a dick? Yes. Whether because that's a realistic attribute, or because the found footage sub-genre has successfully created that trope, it doesn't matter. He's a dick, and he only becomes more of a dick as the kids' camping trip ensues.


One, two, skip a few...once the thing stalking them in the woods makes an appearance, and once the kids begin running through the woods at night, you will roll your eyes. Because we've all been here before, haven't we? First with Blair Witch, and then with its many imitators, we've crossed this bridge. Sure, the fleeting glimpses the audience gets of the creature are cool. From what we can see it's an interesting design, but it's really not enough to sustain an entire film. What very misleadingly seems to be a tale of creature versus kids soon descends into a whole other kind of madness entirely.

There are certain things a movie can do that make me love it. Some of these I've mentioned before, such as surprising me when it sheds its surface-level meagerness and becomes something more. But I also love when a movie makes me feel like an asshole for dismissing it. I've seen many films for which I had high hopes, but only to give up once I was able to determine they were not going to provide me with what I had come for. And I gave up during Evidence. "This is what's happening?" I'd said. "How fucking boring."

Well...I'm an asshole. And that pleases me. I wish I could gush about how visceral and thrilling and FUN the last 15-20 minutes are, but that would completely ruin it for you. And for once the trailer (embedded below) barely scratches the surface of the more intense scenes of the film.

However (there's always a however), the film is not without its problems.

There are two kinds of found footage movies: one where people set out to capture on video exactly what it is that ends up killing them, and one where people bring a camera to their otherwise mundane excursion and happen to capture...well...the thing that kills them. Because this movie wallows in the latter, the only thing to initially maintain our interest is the kids themselves. We have no investigation into an urban legend, no inkling of any kind of what's running rampant in the woods. Because of that, we have no "hook." And since the kids are, at first, our only focal point, there are too many instances of them (the guys especially) veering off into unlikeable territory. This isn't necessarily a fault of the film - people are dicks in real life; I've met them, so have you - but once it gets to the point where you are begging the creature to burst from the woods and take off some heads, you wonder if that's exactly what the filmmakers wanted, or if they failed to restrain their actors accordingly.

Basically, if Heather from Blair Witch got on your nerves, make way for Ryan: King Dick.


Most of the film feels genuinely acted, but every once in a while a line of dialogue or snippet of a performance will feel very forced and scripted, and it can be momentarily distracting. One of the most offensive things I think a movie can do is have a character provide exposition by talking to him/herself. There's something cheap and lazy about it that doesn't sit well with me. While Evidence doesn't depend on this as a crutch, it does utilize it so a character can express how he/she is feeling, and what's supposed to be a real, captured-in-the-moment experience feels less so.

Like many other found footage movies, Evidence is at its most effecting and thrilling in the last act of the film, and while it's blocked and choreographed very well, our filmmakers may have gone a little overboard in post production. There are way, WAY too many instances of the camera momentarily freezing, blacking out, or going on the fritz as our characters flee from their stalkers. What was supposed to provoke a feeling of realism only serves to be an annoyance.

Evidence (written by Ryan McCoy, who also plays Ryan, and directed by Howie Askins) was completed in 2010 and made the film festival rounds in 2011. Some of the more popular horror sites deservedly lauded the film, which is how it caught my attention. Currently there are no plans for a North American release, but I hope it will be out sometime this year.

Fans of both the found footage sub-genre and the more visceral aspects of the recent Cabin in the Woods should give it a watch. Unlike Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity, Evidence does not believe in the less-is-more technique. As John Carpenter once said, if you have a cool looking monster, show the fucking thing. Evidence will show you things that will linger in your mind long after the credits roll.