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Butterfly Kisses
USA 2017
produced by Stacie Jones, Carlo Glorioso, Kenny Johnson, Erik Kristopher Myers, Robin Nicolai, Cory Okouchi, Lisa Mikitarian (executive), Sam Mikitarian (executive), Alexander Shell (executive) for Four-Fingered Films
directed by Erik Kristopher Myers
starring Seth Adam Kallick, Rachel Armiger, Reed DeLisle, Eileen De Valle, Erik Kristopher Myers, Matt Lake, Robert Shin, Daniel Furst, Eve Young, Lilly Pine, Kelsey June Swann, Alexandria Benford, Andrea Hanlock, W. Keith Scott, Kaleo Okouchi, Janese Whelan, Michael Whelan, Consuelo M. Edwards, Chris Peregoy, Ryan Thomas, David Sterritt, Steve Yeager, Andy Wardlaw, Margaret Ehrlich, Jaime Horrigan, Kevin Hill, Matt Davies, Monika Butke, Mike Jones, Eduardo Sánchez, Carla Okouchi
written by Erik Kristopher Myers
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
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Filmmaker Gavin (Seth Adam Kallick) has found a box of 10 year old DV
tapes in someone's attic, and watching them he really gets into the story
these tapes, raw footage for an intended documentary about an urban legend:
Film students Sophia (Rachel Armiger) and Feldman (Reed DeLisle)
plan to make a movie about the "Peeping Tom", a kind of
supernatural baddie that only appears if one stares into a certain tunnle
without blinking one full hour, starting at midnight, but once he has
appeared to you, he moves in closer to you every time you blink, until
he's close enough to kill you. Thing is, the footage they get is less than
exciting, and getting Peeping Tom to show up (if he's there at all) as the
chances for someone not to blink for an hour are slim - and then Feldman
has the idea to set up the camera from one hour start midnight, as the
camera can't blink ... and lo and behold, on all subsequent footage,
Sophia and Feldman find Peeping Tom - at first only kind of blurry and in
the background, but he slowly approaches the camera more and more ...
Gavin is fascinated by the footage, and since he's completely unable to
track down Sophia and Feldman, he makes it his task to finish their
documentary. Only problem, he's the only one who believes in the
authencity of the tapes, everyone else thinks it's a hoax, either made up
by himself, or - as some scenes of Sophia and Feldman discussing adding
special effects to their footage suggests - by the original filmmakers
which only Gavin fell for. So his footage is dismissed at a conference of
paranormal investigators, folklore writer Matt Lake fails to show interest
in the urban legend as such, film critic Steve Yeager thinks it's crap,
and even Eduardo Sánchez, co-director of The
Blair Witch Project no less, think it's a very blunt cash-in on a
genre he once spearheaded, even pointing out the footage's shortcomings.
Only filmmaker Erik Kristopher Myers shows genuine interest, offering to
shoot a documentary about Gavin and his project - but he too might have
some ulterior motives ...
Now by 2017, found footage films pretty much already a dime a
dozen, and while there are plenty of good ones out there, there are even
more that feel like a cheap excuse to not have to deal with the more
sophisticated techniques of filmmaking (like setting up shots, write
convincing dialogue, properly pace and edit scenes, or build up suspense
by other means than shaky camerawork and heavy off-screen breathing) - and
that's what makes Butterfly Kisses - which is half found footage
film, half mockumentary to be exact, genres that have a lot in common
though - so ingenious, because it basically acknowledges all of the above
and does make on-screen comments about these points - with the inclusion
of The Blair Witch Project's
Eduardo Sánchez being the icing on the cake really. And while the film
follows the typical tropes of the found footage genre, it does so
knowingly and letting the audience know, and is really (with the exception
of the finale) less a horror movie than a character study about a man
eaten up by his obsession and becoming a danger to himself because of it.
And the film really uses the mockumentary structure to build up its story
arc rather perfectly, thanks first and foremost by clever writing and
helped by a relateable cast. It's really a film that especially those not
into found footage at all will like!
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