Exists (2014)
The legend is real. So is the terror.
I haven’t done a found footage flick in a while. I imagine a good chunk is them falling out of fashion again, but also just the innumerable amount of times that I’m let down by potential of what they could be instead of what they end up being. Well then, time to remedy that - in part thanks to a youtube channel I enjoy watching doing a history of the making video on it talking about how it came about being made. Sometimes, the universe just provides stuff for you and yuo don’t have to think - sometimes you should pay more attention where you are driving because it might have dire consequences. Might just run over a sasquatch, as tonight it Exists.
Lame lead in aside, that’s really our catalyzing moment of the movie, which is the first actual movie-like part that doesn’t feel like an extended slow motion credit real pre-empting the movie. We have a car full of folks out on a trip to their uncle’s cabin in the woods where fun and tress await. They hit something on the way (I mean, the thing they didn’t hit is pretty clearly a sasquatch shape, although what does get hit could be almost anything tagging along with a sasquatch really) in the night, and it sets up their trip for a pretty dark twist. It’s not long before one ornery sasquatch seems to be haunting their little vacation and smashes up their car in the night, leaving them with precious few options to try and get out of there. Can man beat bigfoot?
The general plot line doesn’t exactly blow things entirely out of the water - but it does provide some nice little details here and there that works almost like a mystery in case you hadn’t figured it out when it showed it to you the first time it happened. The actors do the part that you would expect in the movie well - and that might be good or bad depending on your take of the movie. It’s relatively convincingly just normal people - but at the same time they aren’t necessarily the most likeable through and through. Part of it is a horror scenario - we get a lot of panic and scared from them after things kick in, but they also can easily come off as being jerks to each other. When it’s all down and on the line, they do have plenty of moments where they get to at least try and act their butts off, and they do a pretty decent enough job of it in my book.
That being said the characters are still pretty bleh. You’ve got two couples and the odd-man out who happens to be the one with the absolute horde of camera equipment they are recording everything on. General personality traits are brief - the camera guy who likes to have some weed now and then, whose got a bit of a pervy voyeur side to him for example. Both our lady characters borderline could not exist and the movie wouldn’t be much different sadly enough. General interactions between them feel like they could be a bunch of friends, and the characters have moments where they genuinely feel like they weren’t written to just be unliked, but there just isn’t really a lot to them that makes me worry about their safety like you may in some other movies. The bigfoot does have it’s own motives, and gets pretty well acted as well. It’s on the screen a bunch, but also not really - so when we do get it doing things it feels like there might be a point even though we might not know what that point is.
Not exactly humanities finest
Costumes for our characters are pretty modern and not standing out. There is some bikini action in here, but the only major skin you’ll be seeing is some dude butt. Well, that and I guess technically the bigfoot is naked too - but the bigfoot is a way better costume than anything that’s just set to immerse us in the real-ness of the human side of things. It holds up pretty well in close ups, although admittedly the further away you get from the suit the more it could have just been any old bigfoot costume. The quality does help the guy in the suit do some good stuff when the movie calls for it though. Effects work is nicely done as well - perhaps there isn’t really a ton of it outside of the ‘squatch suit, but we do have the occasional non-graphic blood and a few moments of some bones poking out of places that looks pretty painful. It’s perfectly passable in that regard - although some of the camera effects can be a bit whatever (like the classic digital corruption lines).
No matter how good the rest of the elements of the movie are or aren’t, the biggest hold up is going to be the found footage shot type for most folks. Most of the footage is very clear and well enough shot, but that doesn’t mean that it’s all normal movie clean and stabilized. I’ve seen far worse in the genre - including that movie about the Tapes that made me physically ill watching it, which might as well be worth an award with how sturdy my stomach usually is when it comes to motion and screen effects. It also seems like a slightly weird angle here, as never does the movie try to pull a “this is real footage recovered from this event that happened” in the movie. Yeah, the filming guy seems to have aspirations of being a big name youtuber or something like that, but it’s mostly just ‘the movie is in this style’ more than anything else. It does help as far as making you feel a bit more “there” with the events that are going on, but for folks looking for a nice easy watch it might not be the main choice.
Audio is fine and balanced well. Line deliveries are normally pretty on point with what you’d expect a character to be feeling. Audio is there and largely does the movie thing where it helps with the scenes and whisks itself out of my memory by the end credits. I suppose there may be some stuff in here for the thinking person, but I don’t know if it would really be anything beyond me reaching. I supposed you could grab something about tragedy, and maybe about believing people about some more fantastical things as they might actually be true. If you really wanted to stretch I guess you could talk about trying to stick with each other or something - I mean, it’s a movie about a sasquatch taking out kids in the woods with one of the Blair Witch names attached to it. The cover art really tells you everything you need about the movie - it might spring some subtle stuff on you, but if that cover pitch doesn’t work it’s probably not the right flick for your situation.
One angry squatch mommma
It wasn’t a bad movie. It’s put together well enough, but I don’t think it shakes that “could have been better’ feeling I get when watching most found footage style movies. It is nice that it doesn’t necessarily feel like this movie is ever trying to fool you into it being real footage, as it adds a little level of respect about it. It has a slow start, and the characters although passable aren’t exactly making you really feel for them. That’s not to say the actors or writing don’t have moments to shine - be it a funny line or a likeable little tirade from one character or another - but it’s a far better ride for someone looking for a horror thriller about a practical suited monster everyone knows and loves. Effects work and everything is fine - really there isn’t much to not like about it unless you really don’t like that found footage hand cam style - at which point I don’t really feel this one will change that opinion.