Director – Jordan Kantola
Starring – Clayton Miles (Forward/Backword), J.T. Taylor (Hunger Unholy), Jordan Kantola (All You Can Dream)
Release Date – 2014
Rating -2/5
Tagline – “The lost footage from the infamous disappearances”
The found footage sub-genre is one that I tend to not enjoy. They usually bore me to death and lack any real story or substance to pull my attention in. With that being said, I have seen several found footage flicks that are actually worth watching which is why I have not shunned off the sub-genre altogether.
Not long ago I was asked to check out the supernatural found footage flick Moorland. The title was not that intriguing but I wanted to check it out anyway. I put it on my list of films to review where I forgot about it until recently when I was moving info from my old laptop to my new one. As soon as I saw that I forgot it I had to check it out as quick as possible.
**Spoiler Alert**The film begins with a mother who is missing her son. He has been missing for sometime and the only thing she has that could lead to his whereabouts is a series of videos that was found. She has hired a production company to piece the videos together. We then jump to the videos where we meet three amateur filmmakers.
While on a weed run they learn that their drug dealer is an amateur paranormal investigator and his recent video has over 5000 hits in one week where there videos are struggling to hit 400 in a month. They decide to change their focus to paranormal investigation and decide to check out a location where a man murdered his family in a ritualistic fashion. However, while they were there something attacks one of them which pushes him to dig deeper into it. At this points they decide to hold a seance and then call in a holy man to cleanse the place. This does not sit well and shit gets real!**Spoiler Alert**
What I don’t like about most found footage flicks is that they take so fucking long to get to the good portion of the story. They all feel they need to be authentic and have a major portion of the film consisting of character’s interaction with one another in a manner that has nothing to do with story or plot. They are trying to mimic home videos but for a movie it fails miserably. Moorland did not go that route which is praise worthy but what they did is all wrong.
The acting in this film is decent by indie standard. The entire cast is solid but they did lack experience but they all show a tremendous amount of talent. I would love to see them all in other films. The story for this one is one that has been told before. So many films have been made where people visit a location where a massacre or mass murder has taken place only to wish they hadn’t. However, so very few of these films have went about it in a found footage angle making this one rather unique. However, unique does not really save the film. The film has horrible pacing which when you have a film open up with a woman talking for 5 minutes about what you are about to watch is a pretty bad omen. Editing would have helped this film.
Finally, the film lacks on screen kills and special effects. The film tries to get a rise out of the viewer with supernatural scares in the same vain as Paranormal Activity and sadly, they can’t pull it off. Overall, Moorland is a found footage film that just falls in the pile with the other ff films. It offers up nothing new nor entertaining. I can not recommend this one.
