I watched Robbie Banfitch's 'The Outwaters' after reading positive reviews (a weighted average score of 74% based on 65 reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes site is usually a reasonable guide). Rather than dismiss this mess of a film out of hand I decided to try and better understand it. I failed.
It doesn't take long to get the basic idea: 4 free-spirited kids head out to the Mojave desert to make a music video (Banfitch himself plays the camera and AV operator, joined by Angela Basolis, Scott Schamell and Michelle May, for the modern-day equivalent of 70s hippie combo The Mamas & The Papas), they mess about a bit and then things go awry. It's a familiar trope of 'found footage' horror. And we watch how events unfold through 3 memory cards presented to the authorities, with all 4 people now reported 'missing'. Throw in ideas of strange paranormal activity, weird space monsters, and the kids ended up in a 'restricted zone', naturally ... all good so far. For me personally though, this film has run its race after about an hour. The next 50 minutes plays out like some sort of a bad acid trip, an interminable mess of camera experimentation and effects, painful to sit through. Did the reviewers actually watch the whole of the film? And what state were they in at the time?
You could get away with another 10 minutes, 15 minutes tops, as main character 'Robbie' stumbles about in the night desert trying to grasp the horrors of what just happened. The rest of the film is shot in a hallucinatory state, and he carries on filming for some reason? The flaw is obvious. This can't be 'found footage', can it? He might be hallucinating, we might be hallucinating ... but the camera CAN'T BE hallucinating! Either those things actually happened, or they didn't? 'Found Footage'? The rest of the film was lost on me with all its 'clever' effects and hammed-up gore.
It's worth bearing in mind the real power of this horror subgenre is probably in what you can't see as much as what you can (eg The Blair Witch Project), fears of the imagination etc. There was little of that and rather too much of Banfitch's aimless experimental filming, like he was trying to create some sort of art installation. And that annoying spotlight, what's that all about? Spotlights on a stage? So, very little to make you quake in your boots, instead, things dragged on ... and on ... and on!!! That's a hell of a lot of battery life you got there buddy! Ridiculous!
No, Sorry, I search for the good in most things, but a lot of post-production would be needed to mitigate the self-harm Banfitch does to his film 'The Outwaters'. It's a 'No' from me, I'm afraid.
It doesn't take long to get the basic idea: 4 free-spirited kids head out to the Mojave desert to make a music video (Banfitch himself plays the camera and AV operator, joined by Angela Basolis, Scott Schamell and Michelle May, for the modern-day equivalent of 70s hippie combo The Mamas & The Papas), they mess about a bit and then things go awry. It's a familiar trope of 'found footage' horror. And we watch how events unfold through 3 memory cards presented to the authorities, with all 4 people now reported 'missing'. Throw in ideas of strange paranormal activity, weird space monsters, and the kids ended up in a 'restricted zone', naturally ... all good so far. For me personally though, this film has run its race after about an hour. The next 50 minutes plays out like some sort of a bad acid trip, an interminable mess of camera experimentation and effects, painful to sit through. Did the reviewers actually watch the whole of the film? And what state were they in at the time?
You could get away with another 10 minutes, 15 minutes tops, as main character 'Robbie' stumbles about in the night desert trying to grasp the horrors of what just happened. The rest of the film is shot in a hallucinatory state, and he carries on filming for some reason? The flaw is obvious. This can't be 'found footage', can it? He might be hallucinating, we might be hallucinating ... but the camera CAN'T BE hallucinating! Either those things actually happened, or they didn't? 'Found Footage'? The rest of the film was lost on me with all its 'clever' effects and hammed-up gore.
It's worth bearing in mind the real power of this horror subgenre is probably in what you can't see as much as what you can (eg The Blair Witch Project), fears of the imagination etc. There was little of that and rather too much of Banfitch's aimless experimental filming, like he was trying to create some sort of art installation. And that annoying spotlight, what's that all about? Spotlights on a stage? So, very little to make you quake in your boots, instead, things dragged on ... and on ... and on!!! That's a hell of a lot of battery life you got there buddy! Ridiculous!
No, Sorry, I search for the good in most things, but a lot of post-production would be needed to mitigate the self-harm Banfitch does to his film 'The Outwaters'. It's a 'No' from me, I'm afraid.
