Mind Body Spirit (2014) by Alex Hanes and Matthew Merenda


Director: Alex Hanes, Matthew Merenda
Year: 2024
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Psychological

Plot:
Trying to get her channel started, an aspiring yoga teacher sets out to record a new video series for her followers which soon introduces her to a special series of yoga instructions that soon turns her life upside down as she tries to get the secrets within the teachings unleashed and shared.

Review:

This was a frustrating and somewhat underwhelming genre effort. One of the only positive points on display is the simple setup that allows this one to go about offering a showcase for her psychological breakdown. The chipper and eagerness to display her passion in the initial videos we see of her channel make the gradual descent into the later stages far more overt and ominous as this one introduces the series of writings that fuel her passion into the supernatural. That discovery and obsession with trying to uncover their meaning leads to her physical and mental decline over the course of the film as her deteriorating relationships and strong supernatural overtones present give this some fine positives.

There are some issues with this one holding it back. Among its biggest issues is the fact that there’s just nothing that interesting or chilling happening with what’s going on. Forced into the situation where the purpose for creating the channel, what it means to her, and what the overall point of going for the found-footage route was supposed to do here with the only real hint of purpose coming from  a phone call with her mom, it leaves the film struggling to maintain a sense of terror here without knowing what’s going on. As we don’t know much about anything, this one never feels all that threatening as it tends to end up revolving around nothing but her doing bizarre stretches or complaining about something happening to her.

That leads into the main issue where it's just dragged out and overlong past the point of interest and ends up feeling like an anthology short stretched out to a feature length. The lack of information on the purpose behind anything offers just mind-numbing sequences that repeat on end about her stretching, going through her poses, and generally getting more deranged over time which is what causes this to be just immensely maddening how nothing’s going differently as we see her going insane trying to figure out a riddle that’s obviously not going to end well. With this also managing to bring about some frustrating lapses in the rules of found-footage and how everything is filmed, there’s just not much to hold this one along.


Overview: 0.5/5
A generally worthless and not that interesting genre effort, there’s so little to this one that works compared to the multitude of problematic flaws present that it remains mostly dreadful throughout. Really only see this one if you’re curious about it or don’t mind any of the issues present, but anyone else out there should heed extreme caution with it.

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