Blackwood Evil

I'd forgotten I gave this movie a go a while back, but only made it ten minutes in before turning it off. I tried again, this time, begrudgingly, I made it 46 minutes before calling it quits.

It's not the terrible lighting, poor sound, or dismal VCR quality footage, that was on purpose, I presume. It's the script, and actors. I realize this was a found footage attempt, and as such, some of the dialogue might have been adlibbed. But there had to be a script somewhere. And with novice writers, and just terrible writers, the desperate need to insert 'conflict' in each and every scene seems to be ingrained in their very soul. Screenplay writing 101.

It worked in Blair Witch, unfortunately, almost every found footage knockoff that came afterwards, tried it, and failed. Blackwood Evil failed miserably.

I did not mind the lead woman nearly as much as the property owner. His character, his constant interruptions and insults, killed any chance I had at finishing this film. His snide commentary and the ensuing back and forth was tortuous. Completely unnatural.

Here's a nugget for those aspiring horror screenwriters out there: conflict is good, but when it's forced, and rampant, it's not.

The idea for this movie was great. Eddie, the cemetery caretaker and the set-up guy who was on screen for just a few moments, gave pretty good performances. Entirely too much dialogue, mostly arguing. The reporter, I have no words for how bad her performance was. The psychic did the best she could with who and what she had to work with. And the role of the not so nice fellow was taken way too far. I'm usually a fan of Found Footage films. If some of the dialogue had been cut and a better actress found for the reporter character, this might have been much better.

I watched this movie on POVhorror and the 4:3 vhs transfer style add a lot to the atmosphere. I usually grade Found Footage movies on 4 catagories, so I will do so here:

1. Characters: 7 The main characters, a cameraman and the reporter have a chemistry that you would expect from a duo thats used to working together. There interactions are fun and seem realistic and I liked them both. One problem is an early antagonistic character, the owner of a property. This man is supposed to be annoying and derails the documentary, but I feel that because he gets so much lines and screentime, which I feel also frustrates the movie itself.

2. Setting: 7 Rural USA, this starts as a great setting, but the biggest part of this movie plays out in a dilapidated building, at night. The VHS quailty does give it all an extra grimy look, which goes great with the mood.

3. Reason to keep filming: 7 It's a documentary that's trying to capture the paranormal, so this works.

4. Story: 7 This movie is from the year 2000. Just a year after the Blair Witch Project. Sure, a lot of this type of story is cliche by now, but I think this is a solid effort, specially because of when it was made.

Surely a good watch for FF nuts like me!

The worst thing about this movie is the lead woman. She's a manipulative, immature, passive-aggressive, unprofessional, and under rehearsed character. She presents her lines for the "documentary" portion of the "movie" like a high schooler who just threw their presentation together at lunchtime. She badgers the antagonistic property owner in a really just annoying way. He somehow comes across as more likeable than her and I don't think that's what they were going for.

All issues aside with choppy storytelling, terrible sound quality, and noooothing happening for most of the movie and when things did happen, it mostly made no sense, I wanted a ghost to jump out and slap that lady so bad.

Gave it 2 stars because I did watch until the end so there's that.

This could've been ok but the chick that played Jane Fox was SO annoying that I shut it off 3/4 of the way thru and went back the next day. She was still completely annoying. I can't believe that the director let her screaming, whining and fighting with Travis go on throughout the WHOLE movie. If she was planning on being some future TV personality, except for Springer,, she might wanna reconsider. She said she researched so she should've known what she was getting into. Don't any of these people watch the Travel Channel professional hunters. Everyone is clueless. Dont mess with it and it won't mess with you. Ive never seen some not STFU for one second in a movie. She sounded like she was giving birth to triplets.