The Outwaters review: A found-footage movie that breaks all the rules

The greatest claim to fame of horror’s found-footage subgenre has always been its pretense of authenticity — movies like Blair Witch ProjectOr the original Paranormal Activity These movies were made to represent real life in a convincing way that was impossible for amateur documentarians. The subgenre evolved and produced great films like [REC.]And the worst ones are Chernobyl Diaries, the idea of these movies capturing “real life” became an excuse for low-budget, low-fi filmmaking. That’s what makesThe OutwatersRobbie Banfitch’s new horror movie, “The New Horror Movie”, is very interesting. It makes use of the trappings found footage in a way that Banfitch can creatively cheat the rules, when it gets really scary.

The OutwatersThe story follows four 30-somethings on an adventure through the desert to record the perfect music videos. The movie starts off recognizably enough: Robbie (Banfitch), a documentarian type, holds the camera, capturing moments of the group’s life together and their first few days in the desert in extreme close-up. The movie has a strange feeling of loneliness and solitude early in the film, with the Mojave surrounding them.

Photo: Cinedigm

But even in these early moments, the camera does more than report what’s happening, as found-footage films normally do. Instead, it also shows us Robbie’s thoughts and longings, letting us sit with him as he films Michelle (Michelle May), his group’s singer, for much longer than he should. These moments are right on the mark with The Outwaters’ style, but they’re directly antithetical to the usual found-footage tropes. These beats would look odd in the real world, and would certainly be remarked on by Robbie’s friends, let alone by his actual girlfriend. Instead, they’re the first real clue that The OutwatersThis is not about playing with the rules of found footage, but pushing its limits.

This is another departure from convention The Outwaters doesn’t ramp its action up like most found-footage horror. Instead of subtly drawing out creepier and creepier moments before letting things really break open, Banfitch focuses tightly on the friends’ normal camping trip for an exhausting (and entirely too long) 45-ish minutes. All hell breaks out when the characters get into trouble.

This is where the film’s real trick begins. The film’s real trick begins here. Characters are hurt, die and strange men appear with axes to frame Robbie against the horizon. And, most importantly, Robbie completely loses his mind. He is able to see a world that seems more like his mind than any camera.

Photo: Cinedigm

Robbie takes amazing, almost point-of-view photos. Banfitch remains conscious of the camera’s limitations and makes it even harder for him to notice the subjective shifts. It feels as if something reached over Robbie’s shoulder to hold the camera for him, just so we could get a sense of whatever new, grossly gory task his disappearing mind has set him to.

When it’s working, The Outwaters feels like the audience has been invited to witness the horrors running through Mike’s head at the end of Blair Witch ProjectAs he looks into the corner of the basement, Robbie becomes a witness to the terrors of fraying reality, but also to things more cosmic and less terrestrial, and we get to see both firsthand, thanks to the movie’s blending of his footage and his breakdown. The best of it. The Outwaters places us so far inside Robbie’s brain that we can’t get the distance we crave to make sense of what we’re being shown. It has its greatest problems returning to reality when there are more concrete fears.

Among the problems with this method of ethereal found footage — which sometimes borders on just being a first-person experiential movie — is that it’s rarely easy to keep the camera trained on whatever’s happening to the characters. Banfitch often obscures the characters. The Outwaters’ biggest moments, undercutting their creepy potential. Scenes in the movie’s back half are usually lit by flashlight or not at all, making the action frustratingly hard to see, and obscuring what could have been more meaningfully creepy additions to the film. The near-blindness is slightly unnerving, but it’s more confusing than anything else, leaving some sections without any sense of direction or dread.

Perhaps The Outwaters’ most definitively found-footage-inspired issue comes in its framing device: a series of three memory cards we’re supposed to believe were found somewhere in the desert, the last evidence of the characters’ disappearance. This is a subgenre classic: the “It could all be real!” feint that some found-footage movies have used to lend the movie some real-world weight. But The Outwaters doesn’t need that gimmick. Its footage is effective enough on its own, especially when we’re witnessing things that seem impossible for the camera to have captured, which strains the memory-card framing beyond belief. The actual immersion is excellent, but the faux-immersion doesn’t track.

Photo: Cinedigm

The Outwaters isn’t as great a subversion of the found-footage subgenre as something like Joel Anderson’s 2008 horror mockumentary Lake MungoThe inherent falsity is not only built into the plot but also into its conclusion. You are not. Lake Mungo, the idea that the images on screen are false is fundamental, calling into question the accuracy of the story, the subjectivity of who’s telling it, and whether any of it should be trusted at all, even in a fictional film. Lake Mungo uses the questions behind found footage as a stand-in for the different ways we process grief, and the ways the dead stick with some of us in photographs and memories (and maybe other places) long after they’re gone.

While The OutwatersWhile it doesn’t quite reach those heights, the film does demand more of its audiences than any average found-footage feature. It works within the confines of the genre only long enough to break the traditions, and by the time all hell breaks loose, it’s so far past the boundaries of the subgenre that it becomes something else entirely. The mixture of point-of-view shots, traditional found footage, and the sense of some eerie third-party observer unstuck from time or reality all create an effect that takes us deeper into Robbie’s unraveling mind than a more conventional horror movie ever could.

The OutwatersAvailable in select cinemas right now The film can also be streamed online ScreamboxVOD services such as AmazonYouTube