HOWARD'S MILL is a mockumentary (fake documentary) which starts off as being about the mysterious disappearance of a woman whose husband police initially suspect of having murdered, and then goes down the rabbit's hole of a series of disappearances spanning decades but all associated with the eponymous property.
Plotwise, this film treads similar ground as the mockumentaries LAKE MUNGO (2008) and SAVAGELAND (2015), where every so often a new twist throws the entire story line into a new direction. However, what the film ends up suggesting is the ultimate explanation for these disappearances can be inferred fairly early on. Also, HOWARD'S MILL is unfortunately not as entertaining as its spiritual predecessors.
The production values for this kind of film were okay, there were some nice drone shots and a fairly large cast, but the proceedings just humdrum. Because we can guess early on where the story is going, and the characters are never in any kind of real danger, there is practically no tension.
The convoluted plot ends up being complicated by some extra dead-end plot lines which seem fairly obviously just devices to confuse the audience further, and comparatively little is definitely resolved by the end of the movie.
I think fans of mystery mockumentaries will still like this, but the movie is probably too unexciting and anticlimactic for a wider mass appeal.
