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Movie Review: "Found" (2012)
Aug. 29th, 2015 11:46 pmSummary: A sickening but beautiful story, like a great Baudelaire poem.
Found (2012): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2149360/
I just got floored by this movie. I can only assume the low rating is because so many horror fans have absolutely terrible taste in movies.
This is the kind of low-budget miracle that often lacks a lot—the acting is spotty, the effects aren't great, the pacing is awkward—but somehow manages to make up for it with heart, with an original idea, with a strong, strangely evocative narrative. This film is Decadent, in the aesthetic sense of the word. Like some of Baudelaire's best poems, its imagery and narrative are truly horrible, and in fact it's extremely gory, but somehow it manages to say something new and somehow very darkly beautiful. It helps that the emphasis is not on scares, but rather on telling a story.
In that way, it reminds me very much of "The Hamiltons", another super-low-budget, kind of quiet, unambitious indie film that puts any kind of cheap thrills in the back seat in favor of telling a redemptive story about relationships... unusual relationships not quite like anything seen elsewhere, and rather horrible ones at that, but with just enough familiar about them, portrayed with enough depth, to make you care about these monstrous characters. "Found" shares those qualities.
I really enjoyed it, not as a horror movie, but rather as a movie that happens to require horror to tell its story. As an added bonus, it ends far more satisfyingly than most low- budget films, despite not providing the least bit of resolution. It's a neat trick, and casts a favorable light back on the whole movie, even the earlier parts where it's still trying to find its footing.
Again, if you're looking for shocks, ingenious torture and over-the-top imaginative brutality, this is absolutely not that kind of movie. But those whose tastes lean towards Poe and Baudelaire, and can tolerate the usual shortcomings of less-than-professional filmmaking, will probably enjoy this very much. It works.
Found (2012): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2149360/
I just got floored by this movie. I can only assume the low rating is because so many horror fans have absolutely terrible taste in movies.
This is the kind of low-budget miracle that often lacks a lot—the acting is spotty, the effects aren't great, the pacing is awkward—but somehow manages to make up for it with heart, with an original idea, with a strong, strangely evocative narrative. This film is Decadent, in the aesthetic sense of the word. Like some of Baudelaire's best poems, its imagery and narrative are truly horrible, and in fact it's extremely gory, but somehow it manages to say something new and somehow very darkly beautiful. It helps that the emphasis is not on scares, but rather on telling a story.
In that way, it reminds me very much of "The Hamiltons", another super-low-budget, kind of quiet, unambitious indie film that puts any kind of cheap thrills in the back seat in favor of telling a redemptive story about relationships... unusual relationships not quite like anything seen elsewhere, and rather horrible ones at that, but with just enough familiar about them, portrayed with enough depth, to make you care about these monstrous characters. "Found" shares those qualities.
I really enjoyed it, not as a horror movie, but rather as a movie that happens to require horror to tell its story. As an added bonus, it ends far more satisfyingly than most low- budget films, despite not providing the least bit of resolution. It's a neat trick, and casts a favorable light back on the whole movie, even the earlier parts where it's still trying to find its footing.
Again, if you're looking for shocks, ingenious torture and over-the-top imaginative brutality, this is absolutely not that kind of movie. But those whose tastes lean towards Poe and Baudelaire, and can tolerate the usual shortcomings of less-than-professional filmmaking, will probably enjoy this very much. It works.
