More horror courtesy of Shawn Francis, this time he's done with the killer worms and onto the occult and spooky stuff with Paranormal Diaries: Clophill from the filmmakers behind The Zombie Diaries films, Michael Bartlett and Kevin Gates. This looks promising from the trailer but who know, Shawn Francis has the lowdown after the jump....
Written By Shawn Francis
I’d
like to start off this review by stating I don’t like found footage
movies. I do, however, have an The Blair Witch Project
(1999), the son of a bitch movie that kicked off the whole found
footage craze. I never saw it in a theater, but did catch on
Pay-Per-View one evening. I’ll admit I was genuinely creeped out by
it. The moment it was over I rushed down to Wal-Mart and bought it.
exception—
Ever
since the success of Blair Witch everyone and their brother
has been trying to capture it’s lightening in a bottle and like
usual when filmmakers latch onto a concept they do it to death until
all and originality has been sucked dry..
What
more can you do with this concept that hasn’t been done before?
Enter
The Paranormal Diaries: Clophill.
Normally,
I would have passed this movie by, but after watching the trailer and
seeing how much it looked like a feature length episode of Most
Haunted, or any one of those reality shows that follow paranormal
investigators on their ghost hunts, I decided to have a look around
on the web and see what was being said about it. What I learned was
that a majority of the film is an actual documentary but turns only
into found footage fiction in the last act. I thought, ‘Hmmm, okay,
that seems mildly original, and probably the only tweaking you could
possibly do to this kind of film to elevate back to something
original, at very least novel.
Based
on this alone I decided to give it a look.
The
“movie” follows a group of UK documentarians that are fascinated
with an ancient church located in a village called, Clophill. As with
all found footage movies it’s told solely from the point of view
from the cameras the documentarians are using in their doc. It takes
place over a 3-day period as the group researches the history of the
church that from the 60s on seems to be a magnet for Satanists. The
church is basically a ruin with the remaining walls scarred with
graffiti. It also appears to be the local hangout for the kids from
the village. At night they state it’s hard for ghost hunters to do
a proper investigation due to all the kids milling about. Video
footage from the movie’s cast back this up, too, as ghost hunter is
seen walking slowly around taking PK readings while a group of kids
in the background talk congregate. .
All
the actors act accordingly. If you didn’t know what you were
looking at, your first reaction would be that this is a legitimate
documentary. There are some genuine creepy moments, like one of the
members that goes temporarily missing; a “face” seen in the
woods, up close, which actually gave me a good start and “something”
seen standing in the background as one of the crew talks to the
camera in the dead of night.
As
of this writing, this movie is only available in the UK, coming from
the ever-dependable Second Sight Films, and does not come in blu-ray
form. Its 2.35:1 aspect ratio is crisp and clear, with audio
configurations of Dolby Digital Stereo or Dolby Digital 5.1, both in
English only, being audible and problem free.
There
are no subtitles.
As
for extra features you get two commentaries, one with
writer/director, Kevin Gates and a cast commentary with Gates, Craig
Stovin and Cruselda Cabitac. I always choose to listen to a cast
commentary over any other that’s included. Generally, they’re
more fun. What I learned is that 90% of the movie is authentic, and
it took 3 years to film. Three of the documentarians were in on the
fiction aspect of it, while the others knew nothing. Stovin and
Cabitac are an actual married couple as they are portrayed in the
film, and the kids seen are their actual kids. Stovin was in on the
fiction of the film, Cabitac was not, which means her reactions along
with the other member who was in the dark are genuine, until the very
end, when she was told, and her reactions are purely and convincingly
acted.
Both
Stovin and Cabitac are professional actors.
Everyone
the crew interviewed from townsfolk to a team of ghost hunters, to a
folklorist and a security agent are all for real. The Clophill crew y
accompanied the local ghost hunters one night as they investigated
the church and that part of the film and the weird stuff they
experienced was all real.
The
10% that is faked are only in dollops. I was stunned to learn the
supposed footage caught on tape in the beginning of a figure and some
weird light anomaly is fake. I actually thought it was real. And one
scene in particular of Stovin and Cabitac investigating a sound in
the woods at night was an acting scene on Stovin’s part. Again I
was fooled. Any footage scene of Satanists in the film is also faked
for the camera, which I kind of had a feeling it was, but like the
rest of the movie it’s pulled off convincingly. The cops at the
end, however, were all extras.
‘Tales
From The Graveyard: The Clophill Archives’ (22:55) is a
collection of deleted scenes that I felt rather indifferent towards.
Their inclusion or exclusion didn’t and doesn’t really impact the
final result one way or the other. Lastly, the movie’s trailer is
included.
The
Paranormal Diaries: Clophill is the second found footage movie I
actually got a kick out of and was genuinely creeped out by.
Astounding, since I wasn’t sure anyone could make another one of
these outside of The Blair Witch Project I would want to see.
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