The Outwaters Review: A found footage film that breaks all the rules

The greatest claim to fame of the found footage subgenre of horror has always been its claim to authenticity – films like The Blair Witch Project or the original Paranormal Activity were conceived as facsimiles of real life so compelling that they were indistinguishable from the definitive work of a doomed amateur documentarian. But as the subgenre expanded, great films like [REC.] and terrible like Chernobyl Diaries, the idea that these films capture “real life” became an excuse for low-budget, low-fi films. That makes The Outwatersthe new horror film, written, directed and starring Robbie Banfitch, is so interesting: it uses the trappings of found footage just enough for Banfitch to deftly break the rules when things get really scary.

The Outwaters follows a group of four thirty-somethings who head off into the desert hoping for adventure in order to record the perfect music video. The film begins recognizable enough: Robbie (Banfitch), a documentary filmmaker, holds the camera and captures moments of the group’s life together and their first days in the desert in extreme close-up. That gives the film a remarkable sense of creeping loneliness early on as the open Mojave surrounds them.

Photo: Cinedigm

But even in those early moments, the camera does more than just report, which is common in found footage films. Instead, it also shows us Robbie’s thoughts and aspirations and lets us sit with him while he films Michelle (Michelle May), his group’s lead singer, much longer than he should. These moments feel right The Outwaters

‘ style, but they’re in direct contrast to the usual found footage tropes. These beats would look weird in the real world and would surely get noticed by Robbie’s friends, let alone his actual girlfriend. Instead, they are the first real indication of it The Outwaters pushes the limits of found footage rather than sticking to its rules.

further breaking of conventions, The Outwaters doesn’t ramp up its action like most found footage horror. Rather than subtly highlighting spookier and spookier moments before things really kick off, Banfitch focuses on friends’ normal camping trip for a grueling (and way too long) 45 minutes. When the characters finally get into trouble, all hell breaks loose.

This is where the real trick of the film begins. Characters die, characters get injured, strange men appear with axes and frame themselves against the horizon, and most importantly, Robbie loses track. The further he strays from reality, the more his footage shifts into what feels straight from his slowly warping brain, rather than some sort of camera.

Photo: Cinedigm

Taking these near POV shots for Robbie is a fantastically confusing experience. Banfitch is still aware of the camera and often uses its limitations, making the subjective shifts even harder to spot and more unnerving. It feels like something is reaching over Robbie’s shoulder to hold the camera for him, just so we can get a sense of what new, grossly gory task his vanishing mind has set for him.

If it works, The Outwaters feels like the audience has been invited to witness the horrors that run through Mike’s mind at the end The Blair Witch Project

as he stares into the corner in the basement. Robbie witnesses the horror of fraying reality, but also things cosmic and less mundane, and we get to see both firsthand thanks to the mix of his footage and his breakdown. at his best, The Outwaters takes us so deep into Robbie’s brain that we can’t achieve the distance we long for to understand what we’re being shown. But it finds its biggest problems when returning to reality for more concrete horrors.

One of the problems with this method of ethereal found footage — which sometimes verges on first-person experiential film — is that it’s rarely easy to focus the camera on what’s happening with the characters. Too often Banfitch covers The Outwaters‘ greatest moments that undercut their spooky potential. Scenes in the back half of the film are usually lit by flashlights or not at all, making the plot frustratingly difficult to see and obscuring what could have been more useful spooky additions to the film. The near-blindness is a little unnerving, but it’s more confusing than anything else, leaving some sections with no sense of direction or fear.

Possibly The Outwaters‘ Definitely inspired by found footage, the edition comes within its frame: a set of three memory cards that we believe were found somewhere in the desert, the final evidence of the characters’ disappearance. This is a subgenre classic: the “It could all be real!” pretend some found footage movies used to give the movie some real weight. But The Outwaters does not need this gimmick. The footage is effective enough on its own, especially when we’re observing things that seem impossible for the camera to capture, putting an incredible strain on the memory card frame. 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 mongoose, where the inherent falsification is built not only into the plot but also into its conclusion. In lake mongoosethe notion that the images on screen are fake is fundamental, questioning the accuracy of the story, the subjectivity of who is telling it, and whether it should even be trusted, even in a fictional film. lake mongoose uses the questions behind found footage as proxies for the different ways we process grief, and the way the dead in photos and memories (and maybe other places) stay with some of us long after they’re gone are.

While The Outwaters Never quite reaching these lofty heights, it also demands more of its audience than the average found footage film. It functions within the confines of the genre only long enough to break the traditions, and when all hell breaks loose it’s so far beyond the confines of the subgenre that it becomes something else entirely. Mixing point-of-view shots, traditional found footage, and the sense of an eerie observer, detached from time or reality, creates an effect that takes us deeper into Robbie’s unraveling mind than a more conventional horror film ever could.

The Outwaters is now in select cinemas. It can continue to be streamed writing box or be rented on VOD from services such as Amazon or youtube.