Exists hits DVD today from Lions Gate Entertainment.
I am not a fan of found footage horror. If its appeal is to create a more natural, immersive, first person experience, to bind the audience’s emotions with those of the film’s characters, I applaud any viewer who can allow their emotions to completely take control. My emotions, however, can never be totally surmounted by my thoughts. How did they get this shot? How did they recover the cameras? Why would the survivor(s) edit the footage for maximum cinematic excitement? There is so often no way to rationalize anything we are seeing. Sometimes, a film will come along, shot in this format, and succeed, at least in a small way. Exists, directed by Eduardo Sanchez (The Blair Witch Project) is one of these rare films. Leave it to one of the sub-genre’s pioneers to force a little more fun into a problematic aesthetic.
A group of mountain-biking, weed-smoking, Youtube-video-shooting, twenty-somethings drive into the woods, apparently dying to get as murdered as possible. Headed to an uncle’s abandoned East Texas cabin, the party animals hit a non-party animal while lost in the night. In the darkness, something alien cries out in pain. Undeterred by these events, they arrive at the creepiest dirt-hole cabin so far from civilization that no one can find cell phone reception… and stay there. Of course they do! Bigfoot has to come and throw them into trees. That is why we have put the movie in front of our faces. The kids are dumb, Bigfoot is strong, and the movie is somewhere in between.
It has every above-mentioned format issue, it also has all the horror movie trope issues that came with the cabin-in-the-woods setup, but in spite of itself, the movie does succeed in certain ways.
They did their research. Sanchez, as discussed in the supplemental features, has been pushing a Bigfoot movie for some time. The fact he has thought about this project for so long shows. During a chase scene, the victim, GoPro camera strapped to his head, repeatedly looks back at a dark shape gaining otherworldly speed. I couldn’t help but catch a glimpse or two of the most famous alleged photographs of the legendary beast. To me, that’s an effective idea. Take iconic images from reality and re-frame them within the context of your fiction. It’s fun, and almost eerie.
As with nearly every monster movie, its impact is most powerful before we are able to see the creature in detail. For most of the film, Bigfoot is merely a large, hairy shape, but as information begins to unfold about the protagonists’ unfortunate situation, the more comfortable we are with the monster’s image. He very quickly loses the slightest disturbing effect. Eventually, he appears to be nothing more than a guy in a monkey suit.
Despite its many downfalls, including an ending one has to more-or-less see coming from miles away, I have to admit I enjoyed watching it. Something about its damned simplicity is admirable. The sound design for the creature far surpasses its image in creepiness (but many props for going with practical effects!), and what I liked most was that our dull, stock characters were never safe. The movie does what it can to make daytime just as unsettling as the inevitably treacherous night. Why should an animal feel the need to wait for anything?
THE PACKAGE
Audio Commentary with Eduardo Sanchez and Jamie Nash (Writer)
3-part Behind the Scenes Featurette: Extraordinarily thorough and economic look at the entire production. We spend an awful lot of entertaining time with the stunt doubles, and watching the production designer trash the sets as organically as possible.
Bringing Bigfoot to Life Featurette: These guys had Weta Workshop (THE LORD OF THE RINGS) designing the creature before looking stateside… probably would have been better.
Deleted Scenes
Get it at Amazon:
Exists — [DVD] | [Instant]
