Tag: Found footage film

The Bay Grown up Found Footage

The Bay DVD

After passing over this film on the Playstation store repeatedly, I finally watched the trailer and it caught my interest. I watched it and decided to “give it a go.” I’m glad I did. Although it uses the “found footage” formula that is quickly become a new genre of film, I agree with David Cox of The Guardian, who awarded the film 5 out of 5 stars and called it a “horror film for grown ups.”

The plot is a very realistic one. A big businessman in a small seaside town in Maryland is dumping toxic waste into the bay that the town depends on for their water and for holiday trade. The toxic levels rise in the water breeding a sort of super bacteria that mutates into a parasite that is eating fish alive. From the inside out.

During a Fourth of July celebration, the town’s people and tourists contract the bug and chaos ensues.

The film was directed by Barry Levinson and written by Michael Wallach. It premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in theaters on November 2, 2012.

Overall the film has received good reviews from critics, despite a low “overall” score from IMDb of five and a half percent. Levinson who directed Good Morning Vietnam, yes that Levinson, does a brilliant job considering that the budget was obviously very low; which appears to be common feature amongst “found footage” films. (With the obvious exception of the huge budget for Cloverfield.)

The cast was all unknowns, which helped to sell the film’s realistic theme. While not too compact, the smaller setting of a town plagued (excuse the pun) by a virus or bacteria that causes multiple deaths and abject paranoia by the citizens worked for me. The addition of what looked like stock footage of police cars and ambulances racing to scenes and the young “trainee” media type who is there to catch the whole thing on tape, made it seem more of a documentary than a film.

It impressed me that Levinson could take the found footage formula that is, in my opinion, being done to death and make it into something fresh and interesting. It just goes to show that low-budget doesn’t have to mean low expectations.

While the film doesn’t work for everyone, I enjoyed it and it actually “creeped” me out at one point. The main reason being the plot and the reactions of the authorities and the experts at the CDC who were attempting to help via the internet. The CDC with their, in the beginning, smug know-it-all attitude which slowly devolves into concern, then panic, was just one other factor that sold the film.

The Bay is available on the Playstation store as a rental or for purchase. It is also available on DVD, I don’t know if it is on Netflix or any other “legal” streaming site.

I’d have to give the film a solid 4 out of 5 stars. Worthy of a look, The Bay is definitely a winner in the found footage “sub-genre” of horror and as David Cox said, it may just be the first “grown up” horror film. While I can’t agree 100 percent with the statement, the film definitely deviates from the many “hack and slash” and supernatural films on offer in the “sub-genre.”

the bay

The Last Exorcism (2010): A New “Old” Trend of Film Making

1999’s The Blair Witch Project started a trend of “found footage” films. As a trend making film, Blair Witch not only opened the door for a new type of film, but it also showed how use of the internet could be used to publicize your film and how to build an audience before the film’s release.

There is an old saying that goes like this, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” In the film world the saying could be changed to, “Imitation is the sincerest form of a successful film.” That Blair Witch was successful is beyond question. Shot on a shoestring budget of 500 to 750 thousand dollars, the film raked in an astounding 248 million box office dollars. Is it any wonder that this new “genre” of films has become a norm at the box office?

The only other film to show that much return on investment was the 2007 film Paranormal Activity with its budget of 15 thousand dollars and an unbelievable box office return of over 193 million dollars. P A was another film to utilize the internet as a valid and lucrative marketing forum. There are other film makers out there that have taken the Blair Witch formula as their template and done well in the box office department.

The Last Exorcism takes a leaf from Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity with its found footage scenario and tossed in a “mockumentary” theme. The film is a “documentary” of an exorcist who lives and works in the American south (Baton Rouge, Louisiana). Father Cotton Marcus (played by actor Patrick Fabian) uses a combination of psychiatry and “smoke and mirrors” via electronic means to “cure” the possessed person.

He has a pretty high success rate. But this man of the cloth is a cynic. He does not really believe in demonic possession, he does believe that the victims do and he treats them in a manner that reflects their belief. Father Marcus is retiring from the world of exorcism and a camera crew is documenting his last exorcism.

The film follows Father Marcus on his last case and we meet the victim, a young girl named Nell (which immediately brought up visions of Little Nell from The Old Curiosity Shop), her father and her brother, who is not pleased to see this group of film makers and the good Father descend upon his home. The brother, Caleb is downright hostile to the entire “congregation” and derides the Father at every opportunity.

By the power of my electronics leave this girl.

Father Marcus performs two exorcisms on Nell and finds out that his opponent is all too real and won’t react to his psychological exorcism.

It terms of style, the film conveys it documentary “feel” very well. It looks and sounds like the real deal. Directed by the German independent film maker Daniel Stamm and filmed with “shaky cam” (a technique where camera stabilization is dispensed with giving the film a “guerrilla” and more realistic look) Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel) is one of the producers of the film. Marketing for the film was done via a chat room website (Chatroulette) using a viral campaign approach. It was to a degree quite successful, with a budget of 1.8 million dollars and a return of over 67 million dollars the profit is not as impressive as either Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity but with enough of a profit margin to elicit a sequel.

I will say that the film did look like a documentary to me. Stamm did a very good job of letting the run up to the action of the film feel quite mundane and not a little disappointing. The reveal at the beginning of the film that Cotton Marcus (Did you get the play on the name here? Cotton Mather Salem witch trials anyone?) is a man who does not believe in demons nor the idea of demon possession is disturbing; especially as he works as an exorcist who uses the “power of Christ” to cure the afflicted.

The cast do a brilliant job in their roles helping to sell the “reality” of the people and the story. I enjoyed the film very much and can say that I was genuinely surprised at the ending. I do not do a star rating on films, but if I did, The Last Exorcism would get 5 out of 5 stars for originality.

As the sequel is coming out in March 2013 it wouldn’t hurt to see the film before seeing the sequel. I think you will enjoy it.

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