‘Godforsaken’ Review
Stars: Chad Tailor, Mélie B. Rondeau, Katie Fleming, Domenic Derose, Nicole Fairbairn, Chris Kelly, JoAnn Bundock, Flora Burke, Dan Bieman, Pat Raftis | Written and Directed by Ali Akbar Akbar Kamal
Do you remember how great the film [REC] was? Ali Akbar Akbar Kamal does. It looks so easy, to make a brilliant, handycam horror movie, right? Well, it’s not that easy. For your consideration, I present the film Godforsaken.
Our indie horror kicks off with a wobbly handycam. A man sitting in a car, then going into a funeral. Our protagonist is an indie filmmaker, so naturally, he films everything that ever happens to him (next stop, Hollywood). People are thrilled he is filming at the funeral. They are also more interested to talk about the latest developments in his filmmaking career, than they are the person who passed away. To be fair, a lady does tell him, that filming during the funeral is “inappropriate”. She is right. In 2022 being “an indie film-maker” is about as meaningful, and convincing as someone saying they are a “model” (on Instagram).
“Found footage” is also a horrible filmmaking convention, that adds nothing more than a queasy feeling in my stomach. It doesn’t help, that the camera shots here are all deliberately off, to lean into this troupe. Basically, you are making the film objectively worse, on purpose. The film really doesn’t need any help, being a bit rubbish. It also doesn’t adequately explain why the character with the camera, keeps filming throughout.
Godforsaken also uses it as plot hole filler. You can just pretend that scene was deleted or missing and move on. Which the film does. It is a little bit like in Star Wars, where “the force” is often just plot hole filer.
Back to Godforsaken. We see our suntanned, and very healthy looking, cadaver, as this is a film, so they must have an open-casket funeral. I am no expert, but that young lady is definitely alive and well. They could have splashed a bit of Halloween make-up on her, or something.
Before we know what is happening, everyone is running out of the church, freaking out and annoying the neighbours.
It turns out that our dead person (Lisa) is not dead! Or at least… is up and running around, gurning at people. Rather than people calling an ambulance, assuming there is a misdiagnosis of the “dead” thing, people are automatically assuming that she has come back from the dead. The Mum of the “suspected dead body” then goes wild card, and starts to strangle her alive/dead daughter, claiming it “is not her”.
Which reminds me, years ago, a friend of mine, was pronounced dead, by a medic, and had his last rites read to him by a catholic priest, in a Dublin pub toilet. He wasn’t dead, just very drunk.
We skip forward, to our protagonist and friends going to report on the young lady that came back from the grave. Unfortunately, our handful of 20 something investigators are fairly irritating. One of them smokes weed, because of course he does. Another one of them pretends a dead beetle is weed, which causes a stressful, and quite unbelievable interaction between the two of them.
What follows, is an hour and 15 minutes of charmless, by the numbers found footage troupes. Is the young lady still the young lady? Is she a demon? The film is called Godforsaken, which might well give the game away. Also, she lives in the basement and eats cats. Our cat eating, suspected demon is performing miracles, down in the murder basement. One character starts off wheelchair-bound. The moment I saw that, I knew it would be a plot point, later, this film is not going to be interesting enough to put a character, in a wheelchair, without it being a plot point. And lo! The cat eating demon can make him walk again! A cult of devoted disciples forms around the spooky zombie lady. Sadly, there is no explanation of why the spooky stuff happens. Why did Lisa come back? Why is any of this happening? Why should the audience care?
The way the characters behavem in the circumstances, doesn’t make an awful lot of sense, which doesn’t help things. Nor do the characters all yelling into the cheap recording equipment. Godforsaken doesn’t manage to be scary, but it is a stressful watch. It is a long 1 hour and 15 minutes of rapidly adjusting the volume.
The film ends, in an entirely predictable way. If you have seen a found footage film before, you already know how Godforsaken ends. I managed to get really far, without mentioning The Blair Witch Project.
Somewhere in here, there is the kernel of a perfectly fine, low budget horror. But the implementation kills it. Like Lisa, it shouldn’t have risen again. I cannot recommend Godforsaken over thousands of low budget horror films. Go and watch [REC] again, instead.
Godforsaken is available to watch on the Terror Films channel now and it comes to digital on April 8th.
