Director: Robbie Banfitch
Writer: Robbie Banfitch
Stars: Robbie Banfitch, Angela Basolis, Scott Schamell
Synopsis: Four travelers encounter menacing phenomena while camping in a remote stretch of the Mojave Desert
Embracing the found-footage horror subgenre tropes and nodding to its predecessors (primarily Cannibal Holocaust, The Blair Witch Project, and As Above, So Below), Robbie Banfitch’s The Outwaters has a slow start that follows a familiar layout and tests your patience, but it is all worth it once the disorienting grisly finale, with an exploitation twist, arrives.
The found footage horror subgenre has haunted the big screen with its stylized POV cinematography since the early days of exploitation and grindhouse cinema. Ruggero Deodato shocked the world in the 80s with his film Cannibal Holocaust, where a professor stumbles across a lost film shot by a missing documentary crew that “studied” the Amazon Rainforest’s indigenous cannibalistic tribes. People were so stunned by the movie that Deodato had to go to trial and prove in court that the actors didn’t get killed during the shooting. Although its main point was to get a reaction from the crowd via its depraved and exploitative nature, Cannibal Holocaust meant to scare the audience watching in a unique way, switching their expectations as the runtime flows and the gruesome violence rises. The film was a trendsetter whether you liked it or not. It made people believe that the people in the movie were actually seeing these events transpiring.
A year later, Umberto Lenzi released Cannibal Ferox, which is slightly better than Deodato’s picture but is, in essence, almost the same film. Nevertheless, it paved the way for Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’s The Blair Witch Project, which popularized the subgenre to the point where everybody wanted to replicate it. The problem with this subgenre is that it is not easy to get a hold of it, and things can go bad rapidly filmmaking-wise. Out of the subgenre’s eclectic selection, only a few are effective – Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza’s REC (and REC 2), Man Bites Dog, and Host, just to name a few. Now, you can add Robbie Banfitch’s latest film, The Outwaters, to that short list of compelling and thrilling found-footage horror films. While Banfitch takes inspiration from the aforementioned films (and others), he forges his vision; he delivers a story we have seen before by welcoming the subgenre’s cliches, later to make a descent disorienting and nightmarish hell with a finale to remember.
The Outwaters begins with a distressing 911 phone call, in which there are people in the background screaming for their lives, and the phone operator tries to calm them down and repeats her questions to help them out. But it is too late; nothing can be done to help them at this point. The film later switches to showing some footage, which was said to be found in the middle of the Mojave desert, of an expedition a couple of friends made to make a music video for an indie folk singer. It is divided by the found camera’s three memory cards, using a three-chapter arc to split its descent into madness. The first card is focused on introducing the characters, so we get to know them before tragedy strikes and understand their reasoning for why they are going into the desert. But, in classic found footage fashion, this attempt to do some character development doesn’t work as, in the end, you don’t actually care what happens to them (which is one of the faults this film has).
There are a few moments in which you feel that the characters care for each other due to the cast’s chemistry. Yet, when tragedy strikes, you are not emotionally impacted by their loss, unlike REC and some of the characters in The Blair Witch Project, where you are aching to see them get away from those situations as they escalate. The second memory card is focused on the exploration of the deserted plains. This is where Banfitch begins implementing horror elements and the subgenre’s tropes into the narrative. He plays mostly with sound to heighten its atmosphere, making us think something weird about their locations, and a creature slowly follows them around. The viewer begins to feel involved during this second act after The Outwaters’ unhurried commencement. It takes time to prompt shocks and frights, which might feel tedious due to the slightly off-writing and lack of engagement with the characters. However, when the third memory card (aka, the movie’s third act) arrives, that’s when things descend into unhinged freaky hell in the best way possible.
This is where The Outwaters succeeds; the last couple of minutes are a full-tilt into inescapable gonzo horror, in which Banfitch picks and chooses elements from different subgenres – tentacles to embrace the cosmic side of the genre, guts being ripped out to deliver body-horror provocation, disorienting cinematography with constant flashes to enter in the psychological realm, amongst others. Many might tune off because all of this arrives without much explanation. The film never explains what is happening; the only thing the viewer can do is form theories about it. Much like the lead holding the camera, we are perplexed. However, it adds to the hellish experience because it is outright polarizing and constantly striking. Banfitch focuses on crafting a unique and experimental experience rather than drowning the film in scenes whose purpose is to deliver plot expositions. While The Outwaters might not be the best found-footage horror film out there, its background is very impressive.
Not only did Banfitch star, write, direct, and produce the film, but he also did the cinematography and helped craft the special effects and sound design. It is fascinating that he managed to pour his entire vision on-screen, on his own terms, and have a hand at all of those filmmaking facets – a horror version of Steven Soderbergh almost. Sure, the film’s first half meanders way too much for its own good as the characters wander through the desert doing, for the most part, nothing. During those first two acts, a couple of minutes could have been trimmed to make The Outwaters “cut to the chase” and not feel bloated. Regardless, it is all worth it, thanks to that grisly unsettling finale where blood is splattered, and you don’t even know where it is coming from. I hope to see more of Banfitch in the future.
Grade: B-
