EXISTS (2014)

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Eduardo Sanchez
Cast: Dora Madison Burge, Samuel Davis, Roger Edwards, Chris Osborn, Brian Steele, Denise Williamson
RunTime: 1 hr 22 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Coarse Language And Disturbing Scenes)
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/existsmovie

Opening Day:  22 January 2015

Synopsis: When brothers, Brian and Matt Tover secretly sneak out to their Uncle's long abandoned cabin in East Texas for a party weekend with their friends, they find themselves stalked by the legendary Sasquatch. Cut off from the world, and knowing help isn’t coming, the kids must try to make it out of the woods alive while hunted by a creature that’s smarter, stronger, and more terrifying than they would have ever believed exists.

Movie Review:

Before ‘Paranormal Activity’ made the found footage format cool for the horror genre again, one particular movie almost a decade before it first established the paradigm in popular culture. We’re talking about ‘The Blair Witch Project’, which became a phenomenon from the moment it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival by flirting with the boundaries between fact and fiction. Countless other copycats followed in its wake, but not a single one – up until ‘PA’ – could match its hype nor its success in translating a micro-budget of $50,000 into a US$250 million total gross. Neither for that matter has its directors, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, been able to replicate their winning formula, consigned instead to straight-to-video features that you probably haven’t even heard of before.

It comes as no surprise that Sánchez would be keen to return to the found-footage genre, and while that may seem a convenient move, one cannot deny that he does have a knack for the format. Yes, much as it will still rile detractors who have never liked the fractured handheld visuals associated with such found-format footage, ‘Exists’ is one of the better ones that uses the technique to maximum effect, tapping that first-person perspective to place its audience front and centre at the heart of its thrills. The result is still gimmicky (and nausea-inducing, we may add), but at least is executed with enough finesse just so it doesn’t get on its audience’s nerves.

Like ‘Witch’, ‘Exists’ finds a group of young people confronted with some horror in the woods, in this case, the deep Texan woods. There are five of them – camera-obsessed Brian (Chris Osborn) who is responsible for the recording equipment and from whose perspective we largely observe the action; his younger brother Matt (Samuel Davis); Matt’s girlfriend Dora (Dora Madison Burge); Matt’s friend Todd (Roger Edwards); and Todd’s girlfriend Beth (Denise Williamson) – who as we soon learn, intend to stay at a “cabin in the woods”. Not only does the cabin turn out to be rundown, it also happens to be abandoned and decrepit. That could have something to do with a hairy oversized beast which they glimpsed on Brian’s camera on their drive there, right before hitting an animal which they presume was a deer.

The opening title card informs you that “since 1967, there have been over 3,000 Bigfoot encounters in the U.S. alone; experts agree that the creatures are only violent when provoked”; notwithstanding the sheer ludicrousness of what and who may claim to be a Bigfoot expert, you can pretty much guess that our quintet have somehow provoked the beast to bring on its subsequent confrontations with them. True enough, the Sasquatch comes looking for them at the cabin in no time, but instead of a lumbering beast, this one can run surprisingly fast – as evinced in one of the film’s more effective sequences where Matt is pursued on his bicycle by the half-human half-animal in a Herculean rage. There is no pussy-footing here; indeed, the rest of Matt’s company find themselves at his mercy in no time, who first traps them in the cabin and then after being injured by them with a shotgun wound, hunts them in his very own backyard. 

Whereas other filmmakers tend to use the format as an excuse to withhold from their audience a full view of the terror afflicting their characters, Sánchez holds no such qualms here. While it is true that the beast is initially more heard in moans and groans from some indistinct place in the trees, it doesn’t take long for audiences to be satisfied with a complete head-to-toe sighting of Bigfoot. It is quite an impressive creature design we must say, played imposingly by the 6-foot-7 actor Brian Steele with a King Kong mug and as much visible emotional range in close-ups as the apes in the latest two ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies. Sure, the beast does tease to pad out the running time of the movie, but for the most part, Sánchez doesn’t hold back in portraying its ferocity, so there is no doubt just why the characters are so terrified.

If there is one area that Sánchez has compromised, that is in convincing his audience that all that we see could have been recorded through every melee. The GoPro solution is established very early on, but even then it is a stretch to think that with everything going on, there is still a camera from a bike or a helmet or in one of the character’s hands that is recording what is happening. Purists may chaff at Sánchez’s lack of authenticity in this regard (if you recall, there is never any doubt at least in the first few better ‘Paranormal Activity’ movies just where and why the cameras are located), but those who are simply content to sit back and enjoy the thrill ride will probably not bother.

And yes, for a found-footage movie, this one unfolds with an unusual briskness that holds you in your seat from start to finish. Sánchez doesn’t bother much with character, giving us just enough to acquaint ourselves with the people we are watching but never with the intention of garnering any sympathy for them. Indeed, this is and delivers as a lean but effective thriller that unfolds with immediacy and urgency; it is one of the better uses of the format we have seen so far, and a welcome return for Sánchez to the genre he helped popularise in the first place. 

Movie Rating:

(A lean and effective thriller based upon an encounter with Bigfoot, this return to the woods for ‘Blair Witch’s’ Eduardo Sánchez is one of the better uses of the found-footage format)

Review by Gabriel Chong