Rating: 2.5/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2016 | 41/52 | Zombies
The movie opens with Super 8mm footage of four people hanging from a tree.
Ellison, father and true crime writer, moves his family to write about the event. He hasn’t told them that he moved them into the house where the murders happened.
The police show up and ask them to move and not write the story. They bring up another book Ellison wrote that accidentally helped a killer go free — they don’t want the same for their small town.
In the attic, Ellison finds a projector and Super 8 reels. He watches one of the previous residents — it starts as typical family stuff but ends with their murder. Each reel has a different family, and each one ends with that family’s murder in some creative way.
You’d think after finding what appears to be a serial killer’s home movies, you’d move your family out. But Ellison is desperate for fame and money.
The movie starts off promising enough. But similar to Black Phone, it gets wacky so fast that it’s hard to stay invested. Still, I read Stephen King growing up (and clearly, so did the writer), so I can swallow some silly if it can find its way back to creepy.
Thematically, the movie explores the connection between the images we consume and how they affect us. We like to believe that what we consume doesn’t affect who we are or what we do. I’m not saying that movies make us killers — but those images don’t go away when we’re not looking.
I didn’t love this, and most of it felt formulaic. Some distinct images in the movie worked for me. I just wanted less supernatural stuff.
Side note: the Blu-ray has a 2.0 audio option, which I appreciate for my humble setup.