Evidence (2011)

If there's a found footage movie produced, you can bet I'm owning it sooner or later. For me there's nothing like a trendy genre or some fancy schmancy idea that some genres is worse than others. If people can buy slashers with the same identical story over and over again since the seventies I can buy every god damn found footage movie I find and enjoy them without shame. Regarding Evidence, I had NO clue at all what it was until that old rubbermonsterfetishist forced me to buy it (sometimes I wait so long to buy a movie he recommends that he buys it for me! For free! Like with Sauna! Yay!) I had the pleasure of watching it. So is it any good? Do Steven Seagal like Russian prostitutes?

Two couples are out camping in some national park somewhere. One of the guy is filming some kind (or "koind" as David Childress would say) of documentary, why? I have no idea, but it's a good way to get everything filmed - because after the usual tension ("Put down the camera!", "Can't you stop filming!", "I'm tired of having a camera up my face all the time!") and the camping seems like a really bad idea something actually happens... something as... well, I won't tell you, because Evidence delivers a lot more than I thought it would do from the beginning!

Yeah, after that traditional first half Evidence really takes off and becomes one of the most intensive and mysterious found footage movies I've seen. I guess you all can guess that there will be some kind of monsters or other deadly living things, and that's correct - and expect plenty of them. It's not entirely clear why everything is happening, but not in an annoying way. Here I just found it to be intriguing and wanted to watch the movie all over again to find clues - because I think there's some clues hidden. It can't be a coincidence that a silly joke in the beginning actually reflects in the end-credits, but in a serious way? Already now I have my ideas, but hey... I won't spoil anything!

By tradition found footage movies often isn't that gory or detailed, but the monsters and the blood and gore here looks really, really good - if very sporadic and blind-and-you'll-miss it. Actually, the main effect that comes back over and over in the movie is so friggin' good. And even better: damn scary! I found myself jumping straight up from the sofa several times! It's nice when something that could have been crap looks so good!

If I must complain about something is that it was easy to confuse the characters with each other. They look completely different of course - and all actors do great jobs - but when they start giving the camera to each other it's actually quite hard to follow who's in danger or not, who's disappearing and being chased. Not sure why this happens for me several times in this movie, but it could be some stuff being left out for pacing in the editing and I think it could have used some more explanations in the first half - and to be honest, some more clues in the second.

Confused or not, this is a lovely found footage movie, easily one of the most intensive and scary one's from the last year or so!