Be it the likes of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and CLOVERFIELD amongst others, the found-footage motif of contemporary horror continues to provide a nice start-off point for the genre – and so it proves with the latest addition to this sub-genre of horror.
There’s something screwy afoot in deepest Hastings and for ambitious, aspiring YouTuber Max (Tom Wheatley), he has found the right subject to discover the truth behind when he decides to film and chronicle his apparent recovery of agoraphobic Sarah (Chrissy Randall). With his cameraperson-cum-current girlfriend Nicole (Nicole Miners), he arrives at Sarah’s place, where she is truly terrified of getting outside.
Compounding her fear is the legendary ‘Green Eyes’, a mystical being with what-it-has which lurks in the remnants of a burned down cabin which some kids burned down years ago and lives in the surrounding ‘Endless Woods’. The problem is that ‘Green Eyes’ not only inhabits the woods, but also anybody’s footage attempting to get to his legend….
It is a testament to co-directors Airell Anthony Hayles and Sam Casserly, working from Hayles’ own original script, that THEY’RE OUTSIDE actually achieves its’ aim of being both spooky and shocking at the end, something which I have to admit THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was found wanting.
It is probably as overly familiar territory these days and if you are a horror fan you will probably go with this as much as the next found-footage yarn (and the more dedicated horror fans have seen quite a few, particularly those in the Frightfest community), but it still manages to keep you in the zone, thanks to some coordinated camerawork which looks a lot slicker than some found-footage offerings that show their amateur qualities.
Performances, which also include British horror fave Emily Booth in fine form as Sarah’s friend Penny, are excellent, particularly Wheatley and Randall who tap into the neuroses of their respective characters – and at just under an hour and twenty-five minutes is a fine example of British indie horror. It’s been described as BLAIR WITCH meets WICKER MAN by other fanzines and fans of both will find something appealing here.
