Director: Elias Matar
Year: 2023
Country: Lebanon
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Preparing to shoot a documentary, a woman films herself and her friends looking through a supposedly abandoned house on the outskirts of their Palestine settlement camp, but the more they stay there the more they start to succumb to the ghostly forces within the house controlling them and must get out before it’s too late.
Review:
Overall, this was a pretty fun found-footage effort. Among the better efforts here is a traditional setup that’s usually found in this type of found-footage feature in the setup of the investigations. Initially bringing the group together and getting an idea of the backstory of the house they’re choosing to visit, which provides the expected troubled past backstory of a strange disappearance and recurring problems in the years since, this drops everything into a solid and workable starting point. Even the usually expected setup for the group filming when they arrive at the location and get started with their usual preambles to the show getting all the information revealed and what their intentions are lets this get going in an expected and generally enjoyable manner.
This all turns the film into a solid and enjoyable outing once the more overt supernatural shenanigans occur. After initially finding themselves stranded and cut off from the rest of the community, the way they approach their investigations is quite familiar if still fun where they go around either individually or as a group investigating decrepit, abandoned rooms filled with strange markings and designs all over. The idea of doing these scenes as a means of introducing the topical political climate and observations on that as metaphors for the ghostly actions is quite nice and leads to some genuinely thrilling moments in the second half and into the finale where the encounters start to become more threatening and involve some bigger scopes and concepts that are quite chilling and enjoyable. These all end up making for a fun time here.
There isn’t much wrong here but it does have some minor issues. The most obvious of these drawbacks is the expected familiarity due to the expected setup and approach taken here. While some liberties can be granted to this one due to the country of origin not providing anything similar, looking at it from a much broader sense reveals a wholly familiar series of setups, setpieces, and general presentation that can make this one feel like an ordinary production. However, there’s also the film committing one of the cardinal sins of found-footage films in featuring too many unfilmable scenes involving the ghosts coming to life and tormenting the group which are impossible to pull off in the context featured here. These are immersion-shattering scenes when thought about afterward as to how they would be filmed at the moment and help to paint the main flaw of its production status.
Overview: ***/5
A generally likable and enjoyable found-footage effort, as this is one of if not the first efforts from the country in the style does grant this some liberties since those constitute most of the general flaws present in this one. Those who are avid fans of found footage and don’t mind the drawbacks or are curious about this one due to its country of origin will like this one the most while most others should heed caution with it.
What Is Buried Must Remain Trailer English from elias matar on Vimeo.
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