Wednesday, January 1, 2014

HOW TO TAKE $5,000 AND MAKE THE WORST CRAP MOVIE EVER - WELL, OKAY THE WORST CRAP I'VE SEEN SO FAR THIS YEAR



Blackwood Evil (2000)

What a better way to start the year than a found footage movie supposedly taken on new year's eve of 2000? This being pretty early in the found footage game I was almost intrigued... until I read the opening paragraph. This is it - complete with spelling and punctuation errors:

On February 14, 2000, a single video tape was hand delivered to television station WBWE in Sunrise Texas by person or persons unknown. Labeled with only the title "BLACKWOOD EVIL" it is to date the only solid evidence in the New Year tragedy which took the lives of television reporter - Jane Fox, cameraman - Eddie Johnson, psychic - Margaret Fellows and land developer - Travis Taylor. It is shown here for the first time in it's entirety, just as it was received. Anyone with information concerning the production or delivery of this tape is urged to contact WBWE television or the Sunrise police department.

This movie cost (in 1999 dollars) $5,000 to make (that's $6,994.87 in today's dollars) - they spent waaaay too much.

If you can forget the fact that they're trying to cash in on the then-new Blair Witch phenomenon (see movie poster), that  most of the film is in the dark, that although this was a single video tape there are three cameras filming WITH fade in and fade out, and the first 50 minutes of this 85 minute movie is spent on exposition and a whole lot of arguing (usually virtually the same lines repeated over and over) before they even hold a casual seance which of course starts the whole slaughtering process, you just might make it through this movie.


I think we found Larry The Cable Guy's father...
The premise is that in Texas (during the movie they couldn't make up their mind if this was Blackland or Blackwater - it's only called BlackWOOD at the very end of the movie) there's this spot that was cursed with the highest murder rate in the state. Children disappeared constantly. December 31, 1899 - January 1, 1900, a group of people murdered everybody and set the town (whatever it was called) on fire. Except for this one rotten house. So, says the psychic ('cause of course there has to be at least ONE) starting at midnight of December 31, 1999 - January 1, 2000, the demons are gonna come up and the end of the world starts. Umm, what?

Never mind - doesn't matter. There really is no plot. The film is in terrible shape, the sound garbled, the scenes dark or poorly lit, the actors good at being mad but not much else. It was a relief to watch them die - or rather to know they're dead - there is no scenes of killing, that costs too much money - 'cause when they were all gone you knew your torture was over. Best line in the movie? The owner of the property tells the other doomed three people, 'You're wasting my time'. Amen to that, brother.

No comments:

Post a Comment