Quick Movie Review: Exists (2014), "I thought it be trash." · 4:13am Jun 29th, 2019
If there is any horror genre I think has been done to death to the point it has lost all of its luster outside of parody… it's zombie movies. But if there is any horror genre I think has gotten a good runner up, it's found footage films. Ever since The Last Broadcast and Blair Witch, there has been an inundation of bad found footage films. There have been a couple good to decent ones, such as Cloverfield, but often they get very frustrating if they involve monsters because typically the lower quality video, constant shaky cam, and bad lighting are used almost exclusively to hide really bad effects. Often I think the problem is many filmmakers aimed too high and come up with monster designs that are too elaborate to convincingly pull off on a small budget. As much as I dislike zombies even they take a lot of talent and a decent enough effects budget to look better than what you would find stumbling around Halloween courtesy of Walmart.
Then I found something different...
This is one reason why Exists is probably the best found-footage film I've ever seen in a very long time, despite the relatively simplistic plot and limited setting.
The story is pretty basic, a group of friends going out to the woods to one of the group's uncle's old cabins. Later on one of the friends, a photographer, keep catching glimpses of something moving about in the distance within the woods. At night they hear something howling off in the distance, before something starts wrecking their car with enough strength to shove a sapling tree through the windshield. When the situation grows more dire and they begin to realize what's attacking them, the lead friend reluctantly admits he actually stole the cabin keys from his uncle and not only does no one know they are out there, but there is no phone reception and the uncle had specifically told him not to go there years ago due to some unspoken incident. The repentant friend sets off on his mountain bike to try and find an area with signal and get help, pursued by the angry creature in the woods that also besieges the cabin….
Exists basically it is a Lost Tapes episode with a much higher budget, but in a good way. The human characters are nothing to write home about but speaking honestly here they are very realistic. Aside from two of them, they are all city folks who have never been far out in the sticks before so things such as navigating through the woods at night or handling an old shotgun are difficult. That said none of the characters are obnoxious and anytime they screw up something it isn't damning. It's just that they got caught unprepared, and in a dangerous situation even the most ready people would struggle with.
See, when you don't drive a hybrid the forest really doesn't like you.
Pretty much none of the deaths happened because someone acted stupid, but because the monster is just that dangerous and keeps coming at them relentlessly when they are unprepared. You do get the sense these people are friends who have known each other for quite some time, so when one of them gets torn up and grief-stricken at the death of a comrade or significant other it seems believable. The one time someone cracks under pressure and does something genuinely stupid it's only after several prolonged encounters and mountains of grief, and who has not lashed out or acted a bit dumb when they are emotionally compromised? Even then only lasts about a minute and they recover.
The North American Sasquatch, off in pursuit of Jack Link's™ Beef Jerky...
Stating an obvious spoiler here given the poster, the monster is a Bigfoot AKA a Sasquatch. Arguably archetype of the wild ape man is one of the most simplistic monsters one can conceive. It's basically just a bigger human with some animalistic features covered in fur. And the movie uses this to that advantage beautifully. The bigfoot costume is not the greatest I have ever seen, but it is very serviceable and can look damn intimidating. Given all the stunt work involved I have to give it to the suit actor and the effects team that both pull off these maneuvers as well as make a suit that could hold up to those maneuvers. There is extremely little CGI in this movie, in fact outside of perhaps maybe one shot that lasts less than half a second absolutely everything in this movie is done with practical effects.
And the ways the creature is used in the film help bolster the quality because it is used rather straightforwardly. There aren't any weird twist abilities it has, in fact there's only really two twists in the movie and one of them is fairly minor, which helps keep the plot simple. The Sasquatch is just a big, muscular, fast, very smart adversary that has the raw strength to bash down a cabin wall but also the intelligence to do things like wait for ambushes and use simple weapons like hurling rocks the size of cannonballs as projectiles.
One thing the movie does very well is getting across just how physically powerful this animal is. After seeing it throwing and hurling certain objects as well as destroying what it does, you quickly pick up the idea that getting within arm's reach of this thing is a death zone. Nothing complicated, nothing fancy, just a very powerful and very ticked off predator. And the very fact the Bigfoot has a reason for attacking the cast beyond predatory nature makes it all the more intimidating because you can tell this is a thinking creature. It's not just attacking because it's hungry or feels its territory has been intruded on, it's attacking because it's pissed off.
Plus, unlike so many other found footage films we actually do get several very clear looks at the monster completely unobstructed. Honestly the only Bigfoot suits I can say exceeded this one are probably all from movies with a substantially higher budget, and even then in comparison it still holds up just fine. And interestingly enough the times we do see it when the camera is shaking, which thankfully is very few, it actually plays better to the scene because it shows you the panic and high-speed motion going through the characters trying desperately to get away from this thing.
Don't worry, I picked an intentionally blurry shot here. Attack of the Blobsquatch this is not.
There are also several times you see the creature in the distance and it isn't even given focus, in fact often the characters don't even notice it, further reinforcing the notion that being in the forest is Sasquatch's domain. In fact several of the first times you see the creature it's not even in the center of frame, and you would only really spot it because of motion.
I can also give props to the cinematography. Something I have said numerous times already in this review is the word “simple”, and simple describes both the musical score and the shooting location very well. Often times when people shoot scenes in forests they go for the Pacific Northwest or New Zealand. Now these locations are absolutely beautiful, but there is a side effect of they have been filmed so many times that the moment people shoot their you can instantly tell where it was shot. So if a movie is trying to sell you that this could happen in any distant woodland in the heartland of the United States and yet it clearly was shot on the south island of New Zealand, it kind of ruins the immersion.
Harry Henderson, Mafia Hitmanbeast...
Here? It literally looks like any old woodland from the middle of the USA, Mexico, or Canada. I honestly couldn't even keep track of how many places I have been to that look like this. Without looking up the production notes I couldn't tell you if this was shot in anywhere from Florida to Arizona to Wyoming to Virginia to Newfoundland. That helps to the effect because it makes it all seem more realistic, like this really could happen on just any old weekend excursion across North America and not something that only happens in these super pristine New Zealand woodlands reserved for film-making. And the fact the stunt actor in the Sasquatch suit multiple times seems to just materialize out of what could have been an innocuous scrub pile adds to the paranoia.
Now comes the sense nowhere is safe, because and otherwise normal everyday woodland could be hiding an 8-foot tall monster that could have been stalking you for hours before it suddenly comes charging out with a brush, blindsides you, and beats you to death with its bare hands.
And the musical score gives it just enough bite don't have some real tension and danger quality, something many found footage films can't exploit as they lack of musical score, without being over the top. The music compliments the action without overpowering it.
Yes there are a few times the characters act mildly annoying, and there is the ever present cliché of lack of cell phone service (but to be honest too many people who live in urban areas, I think you vastly underestimate just how common this can be when you’re in the sticks. I’ve been to fairly large towns surrounded by rural areas worried you are lucky to get just one bar that instantly vanishes the moment you hit the tree line); but I don’t find anything objectively bad other than some of the characters were a bit forgettable.
Then again I’m just horrible with names…
Huh. I must admit this does sound legitimately good. Interesting!
i might watch this film, it seems interesting, and my history of Godzilla films can help with the forgetful humans. (seriously I can only distinctly recognize maybe 5 characters from an over 60 year series)
So we're definitely streaming this sometime?
yep ill just stick with the classic Monster Mayhem movies
but that does not mean i shouldn't give this movie a try
... I like horror/thriller movies just fine, but I don't much care for the ones that have something... not human.
Friday the 13th up to the fifth one (I liked the idea of a Jason copycat, it's just that the execution was bad), TCM, Halloween, and my personal favourite (partly out of national pride), Wolf Creek.
this feels like a old movie i cant find called Razorback absoloutly great cinimatic film in the tradition of jaws.
edit: derp you have a review of it lol
Wow! This actually looks really cool! You see, I don't know why, but there's something about found footage horror movies that I really like. This is amplified even more if it's actually of a good quality.
My best guess as to why I like them so much is because in a way, there's a certain relatability to it. With most horror movies, you get some sort of example of what not to do. "Oh, ok! I'll just make sure not to go to an abandoned house!", "I won't go towards the noise!", "I won't mess with anything supernatural related!" Etc Ect. With found footage movies like this though, there were never any 'warnings' this would happen. They just wanted to go do something completely normal and then something happens that you would never even think would happen. That's what I mean by relatable.
It's with that where the horror of the movie also comes from your imagination. It's because you get the idea that the next time you do something completely normal, fear becomes reality. One of those completely normal things is say...a nice fun drive with your pals. What I'm tying this into is this found footage short-film from YouTube. It's called no through road and was literally made by a group of teenage friends. So absolutely no budget, nothing but a camera and a car. It's about as simple as you can get and yet...I was absolutely horrified. Under this sentence, you can find out why I was so scared after seeing this no budget short film. Tarb, if you see this and watch the video, all I ask is that you simply imagine yourself in this situation.
https://m.Oooooo! Wasn’t expecting this! I am a fan of found footage films though there aren’t many good ones but I would also Recommend The Tunnel. About these film makers that want to know what the government is hiding from the public after talking about putting a water system under the city and then suddenly the news about it stopped and they didn’t give a reason to why. The truth is much scarier
static1.squarespace.com/static/5ad4681b372b96bedc6ed2cb/t/5add73151ae6cfbd0c832f12/1524465649922/The-Tunnel-Poster.jpg
5081289
Slasher movie certainly have an appeal and there are more than a few I rather enjoy. The thing about Natural Horror is that the killer will always be very different than a slasher villain. Most human killers are motivated by mania or sadism, such as that in Wolf Creek and Halloween. However many man eating and mankilling animals can have death counts rivaling or exceeding even the worst human serial killers. And the appeal behind having an animal or animalistic monster as the killer is that the danger level can be substantially increased, while the ability to play to the sapience of a human killer is completely removed from the equation. You might be able to stall Michael Meyers or Mick Taylor because as dangerous as they are they are still mortal men so if you were to stab them in the neck with a knife or shoot them you stand a very good chance at badly wounding or outright killing them. But now what are you going to do against, say, a 2-ton predatory razorback that kind of shrug off hunting rifle browns or a 30 foot great white shark strong enough to rupture the home of a boat? And you also have more realistic natural horror such as Ghost and the Darkness, which retold the real events of two man-eating lions that proved to be exceptionally cunning and have all their natural skills such as much sharper senses and far greater physical power.
What I'm getting at here is that I really appreciate both types of horror because they both have different appeals. Serial killer horror is all about trying to outwit and escape a killer that can hide in plain sight as just any old person. Natural horror is a fight against something far more dangerous than a human that can basically insta kill you the moment you get to close, while it holds the advantages of superior physicality and senses.
The awesome part about having a Sasquatch as the killer is that you get a little bit of both actually. You have a creature that is far physically stronger than a human that can off shotgun rounds, easily outrun a human, and brake a neck with its bare hands in a few seconds; but also has the capability I'm strategizing and planning just like a human can and might have a very human motivation. Basically it's a human serial killer put into the body of an apex predator.
5081413
I'm not saying that the non-human ones are bad. Your points are all views I share, but there's a big difference in them on a more fundamental level, and the best example of this is in Misery.
You see, with animals and monsters, they'll still typically fall into payterns and habits. They're still frightening, but once patterns are found you can work around them.
Humans are entirely unpredictable. With Misery (Kathy Bates at her best) you never knew what to expect. When she was off the rails screaming, she was intimidating, but when she was 'calm' was when she scared the shit out of you. You never knew when she was going to snap into her enraged state or if you had ever even seen the extent of her mania.
But what do I know? I loved Silence of the Lambs when I was 10, so maybe I just tend to be more drawn into the complexities of humanity than the fundamental elements that separate Horror from Terror.
5081508
I understand, though I would contend the part about predatory animals or even just dangerous creatures in general being predictable. The fact the whole reason the tsavo man-eaters that inspired Ghost and the Darkness killed so many people was the because they were acting extremely unpredictably for lions. Attacking in broad daylight, constantly changing where they were coming from, going after targets that would have been more difficult to go to and completely ignoring very tantalizing bait, killing far more than they ate, etc.
Usually in natural horror the final confrontation requires the heroes to use some extremely powerful weapon and concoct and elaborate scheme or trap to kill the monster. The contrast of this is in when you have human based horror the antagonist is usually no more durable or powerful than the protagonist, meaning the final confrontation relies more on finally figuring out who's the killer and not letting them get the drop on you. Put Mick Taylor in a room full of people who are aware and he probably would get killed, meaning of story instead involves more him acting sneaky and picking them off one by one (head on a stick anybody?). Put an 2.5m tall, 400kg Sasquatch in a room full of people and you're going to have a slaughter; meaning a big point in the movie is avoiding a situation like this and trying to get away as fast as you can. However I'm pretty sure most people can identify that a Sasquatch as a threat more regularly than they can Mr. Taylor.
So not disagreeing with your statements or trying to sound like I'm bashing. Slasher horror and human horror remind you of just how horrible and terrifying humans can be, natural horror reminds us what it feels like to be prey to something bigger, more capable, and stronger than us. So less what's the difference between horror and terror I would say, and more different types of horror and terror an equal force.
and this is why I really love movies with humanoid monsters because you kind of hit a bit of a sweet spot with both where the flavors mix. You have something physically powerful and dangerous like a monsterous predator, but the cognisense and skill of a human serial killer.
5081246
Very probably. It would be extremely easy to stream because of how the site works.
5081211
Yeah, I was honestly surprised. Ever since Cloverfield, and that movie took a while to warm to me, actually good found footage films were few and far between and were mostly relegated to short films or ones that relied heavily on darkness and obscuring the monster. In both found footage films and typical cinematic films nothing annoys me more than having a decently designed monster be obscured the whole movie.
Here, I would say there is a good solid minute across the film you can very easily see the Sasquatch, including a very prolonged shot you see it very close up with no blur.
5081224
Yeah the movie actually has a fairly small cast, I just have a hard time remembering individual characters names. So it's less they don't do anything you won't remember and more you remember their face is more than you will their names with this one.
5081257
You can rent it on YouTube for a couple bucks for a few days so honestly I say just give it a go. If not I'll probably end up streaming it soon.
5081296
Yep, Razorback is probably in my top five natural horror films, alongside stuff like Jaws and The Untold.
5081523
So... same page? We just have differing preferences.
5081565
Pretty much, I was just explaining why I found natural horror just as nuanced or potentially frightening as its human counterpart.
Having seen the movie myself, and to avoid spoilers, I like how there was a believable explantion for why Bigfoot was going out of its way to murder everyone.