Thursday, 25 March 2021

Leaving DC (2012) - Found Footage Movie


I enjoyed this one. It's a short, near one-handed take on the traditional ghost story, with some modern spin. A troubled man moves from the big city to a fine old house in the country - one that has been empty for eighteen months. He tells himself this is because it is too remote from stores etc, but other reasons become evident. Strange noises are heard outside - a scream, fragments of a tune played on a flute, the noise of an axe on the trees. He finds a locket, and also a cat skull in a kind of woodland shrine. He becomes increasingly paranoid and buys a gun...

This story could in theory have been written at any time in the last two hundred years but writer and star Josh Criss does a great job of updating it. (He also provides a solid reason for the found footage to exist in the first place - one I won't reveal here.) New tech - digital recorders, infra-red 'game cameras', home security systems - don't hamper the sense of a timeless ghost story playing out in a manner that's both strange and compelling. Not everything is explained, but I suspect viewing it again and stopping here and there would answer some questions.

This one's on Amazon Prime at the moment. Well worth a look.

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