In found footage there is a democratization to filmmaking that I admire. ANYONE can make a found footage film and have a chance to get it seen by people. That’s pretty great. It doesn’t mean these films will be GOOD, per se, but that they have the opportunity to make it on say, a cell phone, edit it on free software, and can eschew concerns on music since it generally won’t have music in it.
If you get your film on a service like Tubi you are competing with dozens and dozens of other horror films (probably near to a hundred at least) but you have as good a chance as any other indie filmmaker out there to get some eyes on your film. That’s more than a lot of folks get and, with found footage, there are nutjobs like me that are just drawn to them.
Saying all of this, the filmmakers aren’t going to get rich off of their films on streamers, and alas, it means that there are some pretty half-baked films that will make their way out to the world that aren’t necessarily worth your time.
THE WASHINGTON COUNTY DISAPPEARANCES follows the investigation the fiancee of a woman who has disappeared has started in the hopes of finding her. Filming everything with what we’ll assume is a mounted camera, the man takes the investigation into his own hands when the police cannot find any clues to her disappearance. It appears she is yet another missing young woman who went to a local college and as evidence grows it begins to appear that someone has abducted her. With time running out, the fiancee desperately chases down every clue he can in the vain hope he’ll find her before it’s too late.
This is a weird movie.
For the first half it’s pretty well done.
It feels ‘cheap’, sure, but that’s fine. It’s not necessrily a knock.
Things are kept relatively simple, and the movie works. While the acting is amateurish, the story is propelled by a relentless pace that teases grand revelations while itensifying the danger. AS interesting as the first half is though things start to go off the rails as we learn more and he bumbling of the fiancee gets to be too much. As the film reaches the climax it gets into the absurd as the fiancee fights with the light on his camera – there is no effort at all by him to be stealthy – and he is suddenly at the presumed home of the kidnapper and the movie loses all sense and credibility. It gets weird. And not good weird but, awkward weird.
For fans of found footage I have to warn you that if you have ANY issue with flashing lights you’ll need to avoid this one because the last thirty minutes are full of flashing and it was hard for me to stomach and I don’t even have an issue with them. It is a rough watch though.
I admire that they were trying to create an interesting story that was not the obvious and there are some really interesting ideas here. When it gets to the big reveals though, they don’t make sense and the climax is a complete mess with an even messier finale. Whatever good will is built up in the first part of the film is squandered and in the all I could do was shake my head at the wasted opportunity here.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt24325840/
2 out of 5
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 