The found footage film has been going for over forty years now, which began for most with the late Ruggero Deodato’s CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. The modern fan will most certainly had tapped into it in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.
For film-makers and those who want to short-cut to horror success, this staple has certainly become so common in the genre, with other entries like CLOVERFIELD, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and others. In the case of CLOVERFIELD, the set-up of doing a found footage against the backdrop of a monster invasion of New York yielded highly effective results, thanks in no part to some very innovative moments and a very downbeat ending.
Now we have #CHAD GETS THE AXE, based on an award-winning short, a simple but occasionally very satirical analysis of very douche-brained individuals determined to score highly on the X (formerly Twitter) feed. As this is a horror film, you can kind of sense that this is not going to end well.
Enter Chad, Jennifer, Spencer and Steve, about as naively silly millennials as you can get who are heading to Devil’s Manor deep in the backwoods where a janitor called Burrows was the victim of some evil deeds. They find the house and start beaming to their ever-growing following to set everything up.
However, the discovery of a body in the attic inevitably puts a damper on their proceedings of achieving record ratings online. Still, sometimes there are risks involved versus rewards – a fact that this dynamic and perhaps troubled quartet are about to discover….
Very late-in-the-day found footage entry that’s own downfall might well be this as horror fans have seen this type of film plenty of times over the last few years….particularly for veteran fans like me who found THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT one of the most over-hyped – and not particularly scary – horror films of all time.
In that film’s context, it angered me that the film was regarded as ‘the scariest horror film since THE EXORCIST – considering that the likes of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, CARRIE, THE OMEN, HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH and THE EVIL DEAD to name but a few had emerged in the 26 years since Regan and BLAIR.
However, #CHAD GETS THE AXE scores a lot of points against BLAIR WITCH for its’ deliberately playful tone and funny interaction between followers and the trouble quartet who are facing a possible demise around every tree and doorway. A good entry in the found footage sub-horror genre.
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