There’s nothing better than this review – DIY found footage horror looking for chills in a new home | film

SFound footage movies can do better than this zealous DIY horror from married directors Rachel Kempf and Nick Tutti. Their zero budget feature is fun for a while, but ultimately it’s not scary enough. There is nothing that will make you jump out of your skin or frighten your senses. Kempt and Tootie also star in the film, playing fictionalized versions of themselves: Rachel and Nick, horror-obsessed filmmakers living in Kirksville, Missouri. Things go wrong after they buy a house on the cheap to film a haunted house movie. (Which may seem unrealistic, but you can actually buy a fixer-upper in Kirksville for under $30,000)

The idea is that we’re watching behind-the-scenes documentary footage filmed by Nick, who offers a wistful voiceover: “I wish I’d never filmed any of it.” At first, the new house seems like the perfect setting for a horror movie: there’s some satanic graffiti inside, a door that looks like someone took an ax to it, and even some creepy little portraits of stern-faced Victorians. The couple’s simple banter and self-mockery are fun as Rachel ponders the ways their haunted house could be killing them: “We’re literally inhaling rat feces!”

It’s all fairly amusing until scary things start happening. As if the film were coated in Gore-Tex, the horror simply doesn’t seep through the surface. After Nick films Rachel and her best friend Christian holding a séance at home, a disturbing picture appears on the wall. Strangers in hoodies begin gathering outside in the middle of the night, standing still and staring inside. The longer this goes on, the clearer it becomes that this isn’t going anywhere particularly interesting, and time is running out as it gets there.