They're Outside

Putting together a list of movies from FrightFest 2020 I would watch,I decided that one of the things I really wanted to do,was to at least see one title which would be streaming/screening for the first time ever at the event. Finding two premier showings were happening on Saturday, (the other was Playhouse (2020)) I flipped a coin,and went outside.

Note:Review contains some spoilers.

View on the film:

Hyping up to camera that he will cure Sarah Sanders of her agoraphobia in ten days, in between requesting viewers subscribe to his channel, Tom Wheatley gives a terrific performance as Spencer which avoids sanding down his off-putting rough edges, thanks to Wheatley delivering the dead-pan comedic swipes of the first half with a brittleness, which builds curiosity on learning more about Spencer,that Wheatley finely balances by having Spencer's bluntness become increasingly abrasive,firmly holding him away from becoming sympathetic.

Entering with a New Age groove,Emily Booth is a absolute delight as Penny, whose more mature, measured outlook Booth uses to keep Penny firmly at odds with Spencer's goals,whilst Chrissy Randall gives a quietly unsettling turn as Sanders, whose agoraphobia has Sanders walk on extremely fragile eggshells.

Partly based on the real Jack in the Green event held each year in Hastings, co-directors Sam Casserly & Airell Anthony Hayles wonderfully splice the Found Footage with colourful different methods of documentary making, from animation going into the background of Green Eyes and real footage of the Jack in the Green event, with retro, lo-res digital video giving the opening a local amateur doc appearance.

Taking a less is more approach to the sighting of Green Eyes,the screenplay by co-director Hayles treads the Found Footage with a chilly Folk Horror backdrop creeping up to a sinister surreal final.

Keeping Spencer, his girlfriend Nicole and Penny within Sanders house for the majority of the film, Hayles brightly lights simmering paranoia in the small-scale set-up allowing for up close and personal shocks to bounce between Sanders and Spencer,who look from the front door to discover what is outside.

I think the concept of this movie was interesting. An agoraphobic who can't leave her house has an actual supernatural reason to not leave her house. A psychologist bets he can get her out of her house in ten days. Things go bad very quickly. This all sounds fine and dandy, but then the man starts talking and never shuts up. Ever. The more he rambles on, the more I can't stand him. The agoraphobic barely moves or speaks, so I never did care about her. There are no scary moments in this movie. I do know this. Forget the ten days. I would have been out of that house in ten minutes just to get away from hearing the man drone on and on about how I should get out of that house. I gave it an extra star because the actor really made me dislike his character.

Attempting to film a new documentary piece, a Youtube psychologist and his assistant head out to help a woman conquer her agoraphobia, but when his studies end up arousing the spirit of a local legendary deity that lives in the area must try to work through the issue before it's too late.

This was a pretty unenjoyable genre effort. Among the more intriguing features here is the overall setup here mixing together the folklore of the area with the initial documentary approach of the main film. After the brief intro that prepares the legend of the town boogeyman and his connection to the village, this early work is done here to establish the setup going forward and how she needs to be treated with his presence. That allows the later scenes showing the effects of her mental condition and how the legend has affected her leading up to the finale where it manages to offer up the kind of chilling reveal that makes for a rather dark reveal however, this is really all that holds this one up with the potential zapped from this one quite easily. There are some big problems with the film. The major drawback is that the film's central relationship we're supposed to be following isn't in the slightest bit interesting or worthwhile. Frankly, he's not that compelling a person to follow here, being argumentative and pushy while completely disregarding anyone else around him who even dares to say anything contrary to his single-minded mission that causes her to regress more than anything helpful. As well, with that behavior turned toward his girlfriend resulting in an antagonistic relationship which eventually blows up in his face with cheating allegations in addition to the numerous times he shuts her down for anything, it's really hard to make him to be a sympathetic figure for us to follow. The other factor here is that with the film spending the majority of its running focused solely on getting to the bottom of her issues with agoraphobia, it's not that interesting or exciting for large portions of time. The three-person focus here detailing plenty of these factors involved in the treatment that isn't involving or sympathetic, much less scary since so little of this is tense or thrilling. With the random introduction of potentially creepy ideas from the security camera footage done to show her outside to the faked videos and the revelation cut that shows what's really going on, it all just seems to come off chaotically rather than out of any sort of logical build-up which makes for a rather depressing and detrimental effort for the most part.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.

I first saw this film at Fright Fest and have watched it a few more time since and really enjoy it, its a great original take on the found footage genre of films and the supernatural aspect of the film could definitely be expanded on. The ending is very good, as a package this film is very well thought out and mixes folk legend myths with agoraphobia in a well polished indie horror and suspence production. The characters are believable and the dialogue is good, the way the story progresses is great and tension builds as the film progresses, this is certainly one of the best indie found footage movies to release in recent years and definitely worth a watch.

I am a fan of found footage movies and always give them a watch whether they are good or bad and as fans of this genre know there are more bad than good out there.

This little film could have been more in the side of good than bad but it doesn't because of two small little details the filmmakers forgot about.

The first one is making it scary, there were no scary parts in the whole film, even green eyes was laughable.

The second was the ending, once again it looked as if the filmmakers ran out of ideas and just decided to end the movie.

In the plus side the acting was way above par for this kind of movie and I wasn't bored by the film.

It's a shame really that the actors involved were very good at their job but given a dreadful script. Let's hope they get a chance of doing another film together that will be worth watching.