The Houses October Built

"The Houses October Built" (2014, Bobby Roe, Room 101, Foreboding Films, Image Entertainment, RLJ Entertainment) is a found footage horror set at Halloween.


The film opens at the end. I imagine to whet your appetite and rev you up for the movie, but for me it just robbed a bit of the mystery out of the experience.


Flash forward to introduce us to a group of pals from Ohio setting out on their road trip around the American South's scariest and most extreme Haunted House attractions. They plan to film their experience as a documentary and uncover the darker side of the 'harmless' fun of thrill-seeking.


They start out with the more mainstream Haunts, introducing us to the characters and letting us see some of the attractions. But their ultimate goal is to find a legendary and exclusive extreme haunt called "Blue Skeleton", which is said to utilise actual torture techniques for a more realistic experience.


Throughout their journey they encounter natural resistance from Haunt staff to divulge their trade secrets or oust their employers' more sinister tricks. They're chased, threatened and thrown out a fair few times. Additionally, they get to hear some more disturbing tales from less coy staff.


Finally, they catch wind of the elusive Blue Skeleton and, with some difficulty, are able to gain entry to the Haunt. However, once inside, will they live to tell the tale?


A directional debut from Roe who also plays one of the main characters, he has brought together a cast which interacts fairly well on screen. However, the film suffers from a bit of a lack of strong pacing and a few conflicts of style. The characters start out making a documentary, but this theme doesn't seem to continue much throughout the film and it winds up just a stream of clips. I get it, they haven't edited it yet (and maybe won't ever get around to it) but you'd think they would have filmed a few more documentary-style scenes and interviews than are shown.


The film premise is pretty good with plenty of footage of the haunts themselves, but there's very little action throughout most of the movie and then, when stuff does start to pick up, it's over really quickly without any explanation and not enough mystique to make it a satisfying mystery. The movie ends with the only explanation being "*shrug* just 'cause".


I'm not a huge found footage fan, and when I do find a FF film that I like, it invariably has some wraparound or a few scenes of traditional filming to bolster out the shaky cam (see my thoughts on 2016's "Hell House LLC"). One of my main issues with "The Houses October Built" was that its reliance solely on 'unedited' found footage reels, made it noisy and disjointed to watch. And it's never really explained how we're watching it. Have the Blue Skeleton staff sold the videos on? Are we watching it over their shoulder/through their eyes? Was this even the Blue Skeleton?


Although, for a debut it's a fairly solid Found Footage entry and, if you like haunted houses, there's a few good scenes.

[Image: Foreboding Films, et al]

Hani

Hell House LLC

"Hell House LLC" (2016, Stephen Cognetti, Cognetti Films) is a found footage mock-umentary film set in a Halloween haunt.

The film circulates around a film crew trying to unravel the mystery of a tragedy which struck a haunted house in an abandoned hotel. Although authorities reported a 'malfunction' as the cause of the panic, survivor footage and accounts have made it seem like something more sinister happened. When someone steps forward as a witness who was involved in the tragedy, along with a lot of new, unseen footage, the crew think they might be on the verge of a breakthrough. We follow the story of the group of haunters setting up shop in the small town just outside of New York city and see first hand the events as they unfolded.

I'm not the biggest fan of found footage as a rule. The jumpy camera style gives me motion sickness and often the acting is unnatural and distracting. But, "Hell House LLC" manages to be dark, entertaining and filled with effective jump scares. The camera motions are very typical of a found-footage flick, but the effective screen cutting, styling and overall storytelling keep the viewer engaged and stop it from becoming boring.

The characters are well evolved and a good sense of camaraderie (and animosity) is built up effectively. Some of the jump scares are pretty by-the-book, but these are well paced and nicely shot. There are a few, however, that actually elicited a jump from me and the use of one of the haunt props is extremely well done. It is definitely this that made the film stand out for me and has brought it into my annual Halloween watch list.

The film delivers an effective scare fest and neat plot twist that creates a great Halloween party atmosphere. And while the plot isn't exactly breaking any new ground, it does inject the jump-scare, found footage genre with a fun, atmospheric entry.

[Image: Cognetti Films]

Hani

The Bay

"The Bay" (2012, Barry Levinson) is a found footage 'mock-umentary' about the ecological side-effects the human race is having on the globe, and is pretty much a nature-bites-back-film.

Based in a small American Seaside town called Chesapeake during their 4th of July celebrations, we watch through the confiscated found footage of the inhabitants and a small student news blog as the town falls into chaos when a terrifying menace begins threatening the lives of the townspeople.

I'm not usually fan of found-footage, but I'm happy to report that "The Bay" is a winner for me. It was gross, scary and had a plot. While it's evidently a platform for Levinson to preach a little about global pollution and governmental transparency, it does so with style and excellent effects.

Some good old jump scares keep the pace, while we also get a lot of disturbing visuals and an engaging and almost 'mystery'-like slow reveal of the true cause of the panic and deaths.

While it's certainly no "Jaws", it's a really good yarn. Hey, and Kirsten Connolly from "Cabin In The Woods" is in it!

Hani