Director: Isaac Rodriquez
Year: 2022
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
While researching a missing person's case, a group of student filmmakers stumble across an urban legend involving a mysterious figure known as Mister Creep and begin investigating the story, leading them into a deadly conspiracy with a supernatural figure that will put them all at risk.
Review:
Overall, this was a pretty enjoyable if somewhat flawed effort. When it works best is the engrossing setup that manages to provide this one with the kind of small-town lore that would believably set these events in motion. The early portion here focuses on the team's means of finding work in the film industry and trying to keep a job going in that regard leads to the decision to switch over to the missing person's case and eventually turns into the early setup of the figure haunting the area. Getting the brief bits we do about his psychological make-up with the clown mask, the mysterious nature of his summoning ritual with the static-filled TV signal, and the interrogation video that sheds a lot of light on the personality of the figure quite nicely.
As well, the episodic nature of how this is presented allows the film to ramp up the intensity and scares as it goes along feels rather nice. The visit to the police station he was reportedly kept at that results in their friend going missing while the eerie visit to the sympathetic writer offers the kind of startling scares that go hand-in-hand with the type of psychological torment featured here. The finale on the abandoned farm is the best part with the killers' appearance at various spots throughout the location serving up some decent jump-scares and providing some genuinely chilling scenes when a series of double-crosses are revealed that bring about a gruesome finish to it all. These manage to give it some likable features.
There isn't much really wrong with this one, but it does have some minor issues. The biggest drawback to the film is the film's reliance on the abundance of cliches familiar within the found-footage genre. With the characters hurtling themselves into obviously dangerous territory with nothing for protection, a proclivity to film stuff that has no business being recorded due to the safety of human life at stake, and believing that splitting up is a good idea among a seemingly endless list of other features, it finds itself running on the familiar and unlikable ground rather easily making it quite easy to miss a lot of the positive factors when you're complaining about it trotting out the usual irritating tropes.
The other drawback to this one concerns several other blunders made in the filmmaking presentation that belie its found-footage origins almost as much as its storyline drawbacks. Despite it presenting the various chapters rather organically throughout here, these would not be present if the footage was genuinely found and presented as such since that would require post-production editing to insert into the running time. As well, the interrogation scenes that are shown here give us clues to his personality and mindset feel completely at odds with what's going on as the scenes are taken from the actual police cameras rather than a more logical viewing solution like being watched on TV, so it also hinders the illusion quite a bit. These factors are what hold this down.
Overview: ***/5
An incredibly solid if flawed found-footage effort, that the majority of the flaws here are seemingly based on the production side of things makes this a decidedly tough effort to recommend. Those who are intrigued by the style or approach, don't mind the flaws, or are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here while others that don't like the positives or are turned off by the flaws should heed caution here.
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