Evidence (2011)

 

Recognise this setup?

A group of youths go out into the woods to shoot a documentary. They moan and whine and even more so when strange things start to happen such as weird sounds in the night, dark animal shapes that are just glimpsed. Some of them want to leave but others dont and it all leads to nastiness.

This was a description of just about every single Found footage movie that has poured out on dvd at the constant rate of camera prices going down. Most of these are frankly crap, made by people who have no real understanding of how such a movie works. We get a few gold nuggets such as REC and Cloverfield, but these are few and far between. Evidence starts out EXACTLY like you expect it to, strange animal cries are heard and the youths behave as intelligently as a sack of mouldy potatoes. There are a few chills that keep you going but it all feels so clichéd. Then it all goes completely insane.

I would like to tell you more about the plot but I wont, the less you know the more you will enjoy it but when you look back you realize that there were a few hints all along. Evidence goes from Found footage by the numbers to an exciting riproaring horrormovie that takes no prisoners, full of dark and maybe not totally original but still cool concepts. It asks more questions than it answers (some cool extra footage during the credits goes even further with that) but I go with the old "the mind is better at filling in the blanks than standard story exposition" trick and the movie just gets better with that. The only complaints I have is that the actors arent given much to work with in the first half, making you wish that they all would die a horrible death but as soon as the running starts you are too caught up in the events that it doesnt really matter anymore. And speaking of running, a constantly shaking camera with the usual fake errors to conceal editing does get a bit grating after a while. It does not kill the movie but I would sure as hell not want to watch this in a movie theatre.

This is the best found footage flick since REC2 and I admire the filmmakers for having the balls of actually going somewhere with a concept that is getting less interesting by the minute. Very well recommended.