Filmmaker (and lead actor) Josh Stifter’s off-Hollywood horror picture, shot for about $4,000 in black and white—except for blood-red credits—functions in a look-what-can-be-done-on-no-money way, that will have appeal for horror addicts and Minnesota completists. Others may have trouble in the gruesome operating-table sequences rationalizing why they are watching.
A familiar opening gimmick is that dweebish Dom (Stifter) lives with his awful mother and centers life around his ill-regarded paranormal online channel, in which he investigates modern “cryptozoology” legends such as the Jersey Devil (no, this is not a “found-footage” narrative, despite the ingredients for one). Dom has only half-hearted help from his best pal Miles (Keith Radichel). Things get so bad that Dom nearly commits suicide with a gun after leaving mom a VHS farewell note but cannot go through with it.
Then Dom receives an anonymous video purporting to show a “chupacapra” somewhere in remote woods. Dom recruits Miles (who broke his vintage Gameboy and has nothing better to do), and they visit the site, on land owned by Doug Greywood (Daniel Degnan), who claims no monster encounters but is happy to let the pair camp and investigate.
Greywood is acting a little too friendly about the circumstances. Unlike so many menaces in Blair Witch-style material where a lot is left to the imagination (translation: low budget), Greywood tries to explain himself in great detail in his mad-science barn in the shock-horror last act.
It is still difficult indeed to make logical sense out of the whole feature, but maybe that’s not the point; internet-age mythmaking and folklore superstition are. Or maybe not. In any case, filmmaker Stifter inserts animation of various kinds and numerous references to yesteryear’s technology to make some kind of statement.
A saloon-ish soundtrack tries to forge a hauntingly scary anthem out of the tune “Home on the Range” and more Tom Waits-y stuff, which is an iffy proposition. There is some adequate creature f/x, considering the paltry financing. Result overall is a festival-type post-modern horror feature, minus name actors. Attempts to do stuff differently will win admirers in the DIY/”underground” filmmaking crowd but may leave mainstream viewers just puzzled. Buyers of mainstream-entertainment shelves should know there is profanity and brief but nasty gore, but no sex/nudity.