Out of the box

[attach id="253373" size="medium"]Director Ruggero Deodato was brought up on a murder charge after audiences mistook his Cannibal Holocaust for reality.[/attach]

So the search for the ultimate horror ‘reality’ continued after my not-too-terrible experience with The Blair Witch Project last week.

Because I’m the kind of nerd who, after watching a film, will actually go on IMDB and all the ancillary websites to check out trivia, production notes, goofs and so forth, when I was told that the movie had been inspired by another found-footage production called The Last Broadcast… well, of course I had to watch it.

I say ‘inspired’, but what I actually mean is that accusations of copying and plagiarism were flying around left, right and centre.

I suppose the genre was new enough that comparisons were inevitable, particularly since The Last Broadcast predated The Blair Witch Project, but failed to draw in the hype, success and – more importantly – the money that the latter did.

Unfortunately, the film also broke records in terms of bringing the sickest scenes of gratuitous violence to our screens

The Last Broadcast, for those who aren’t geeky enough to do their own research, was released in 1998 and is directed by Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler.

The movie is shot in the style of a documentary and follows a film-maker’s investigation into the events that led to the death of Steven Johnny Avkast and Locus Wheeler while they are investigating a local legend referred to as the Jersey Devil.

They do this through a live internet relay session, hence the convenience of the found footage that eventually delivers the identity of the murder and… the twist. Which I’m not going to go into here, of course.

I have to say that I was even less impressed with – or scared by – The Last Broadcast than I was with the Blair Witch Project. As intriguing as this ‘found footage’ technique is, the drive to make it look as realistic as possible means that you get way too many bumps, noise and disjointed scenes than make for a good story.

So far, the only two such films that worked were Cloverville and Chronicle. Both were released considerably after The Blair Witch Project, which is a good thing as the directors of both had time to polish their technique, so to speak. Neither of the movies suffers from the same annoyances as the first two, and while retaining their realistic feel they don’t make it difficult to actually follow what’s going on.

More research followed, of course. The research revealed that both The Last Broadcast and The Blair Witch Project were based on yet another film that had previously broken the records – Ruggero Deodato’s 1980 offering, Cannibal Holocaust.

Unfortunately, the film also broke records in terms of bringing the sickest scenes of gratuitous violence to our screens… which means that it managed to get banned in most countries.

Although today the ban has been lifted, I really have no desire to actually check out what all the fuss is about. From what I can gather, it only made it as a cult classic because of the hype all the violence generated, although Sergio Leone disagrees.

Oh yes, and – as happened with The Blair Witch Project – viewers actually fell for the realism of the story hook, line and sinker. I honestly fail to figure out how people can be so gullible.

For a while, everyone thought it was a snuff movie – and the term ‘everyone’ includes the judge who was assigned to the case and who had to figure out whether the complaints were justified or not.

So don’t count on me to update you on this one; feel free to experience it yourself and to forward me your conclusions.

rdepares@timesofmalta.com