![]() I suppose the keyword here would be "believability", which is something lacking in most found footage movies. What makes THE BLACKWELL GHOST better than most in its genre, in spite of its meager pallet, is a small collection of stylistic elements that Turner Clay manages to imbue into the movie. ![]() It's just her big, doofus husband being himself. In fact, the happenings are so low-key that Turner's wife, who is in the same house WITH Turner WHILE everything is happening mind you, doesn't even believe anything unusual is going on. Various noises, thumping's, and banging sounds, doors which were closed are found open, various faucets turned on repeatedly no matter how often you turn them off, a kitchen stove that turns itself on, and vague, barely perceptible whitish shadows moving across frame are all you ever get in terms of paranormal activity. You never actually SEE any paranormal activity at all, just the after effects. If there were any fewer special-effects in THE BLACKWELL GHOST there wouldn't be any at all. Usually there isn't enough interesting action to fill an entire movie and so it pretty much has to be all compressed into the end to get viewers to hang on long enough to see the entire picture. THE BLACKWELL GHOST follows the usual found footage recipe of filming mostly mundane activities while building to a few-minutes-long crescendo of extra scary stuff right before the end. Does sound like a surefire recipe for ghosts to me. Why all the ghostly activity? Well, several decades ago a crazy lady by the name of Ruth Blackwell lived in the house and, for some unspecified reason, decided to murder a few local children, chop them into pieces, and drop them down the old well in the basement of the house. Ostensibly this should be easy since Greg calmly tells Turner that paranormal activities pop up almost every day and at least every other day. So off Turner and his wife go to Greg's house to spend a few days and see if they can't catch something on film. After a bumpy start, having posted his interest in haunting stories on some appropriate forums, he is contacted by a man named Greg who says he owns and has lived in a haunted house for nearly half a century. It's not that he particularly believes in ghosts, but he just thinks it might make a worthwhile "documentary" if he can pull it off. Turner has decided he's tired of making low-end zombie movies and thinks it might be fun to make a pet project movie that "proves" the existence of ghosts, assuming that he can. In general, the plot line is simple but sturdy. The movie only has three characters: Turner Clay who does practically everything, including most of the filming and is the star, his wife, and a fellow named Greg who is the owner of the haunted house that is most of the focus of the film. Remarkably, in a field largely populated by 1's and 2's, THE BLACKWELL GHOST probably ranks as a reasonably solid 5 and does so around a "less is more" approach. THE BLACKWELL GHOST does bill itself officially as a "documentary" but it's structurally and procedurally indistinguishable from a found footage horror movie. ![]() Most found footage horror movies only rate about a 1 or 2 even when, to be charitable, you only rate and review them relative to others of their own kind. But considering that is what you have to do with almost all horror movies that aren't based in on some real event and even those movies screw with the truth you should be able to do it for this. You can't watch this and judge it as a horror movie you have to look at it as it could be real if you can't do that you won't enjoy it. This may use some of those tools but not once does anyone say that this is proof it's showed and there it is. And when they are done these people will claim this is real proof. In every movie but more so the dozens of ghost hunting tv shows it's starts with a bold statement that this could be what proves ghosts exist and followed by periodic excitement when a chair moves and they pull out some electronic device that they say picks up ghost voices. It's so low key and lacks the unrealistic jump scares of most every other fake/real ghost Doc's that have been puked out by every idiot with a cell phone. It is done so well that it seems almost real. This is the best of the fake/real ghost documentaries and it's not even close. ![]()
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