Like so many forgettable slashers made in the mid-80s or low budget zombie indies filmed in backyards during the '90s, Crowsnest is yet another product of its trendy time. In this case, the fad is found footage, and like many a slasher or undead feast, it's a little lazy, a little scary, and ultimately, a passable if unmemorable under-90 minute stream on Instant Watch.
Quick Plot: Meet The Worst People In the World.
Okay, perhaps that was harsh. These pretty young people aren't Nazis, as far as we can see. They're just Awful.
Capital A. Because when you get five giggling twentysomethings stuffed in the driver's parents' car in a haze of pot smoke and wine coolers--WINE COOLERS--there's really no other appropriate punctuation.
We'll get back to Just How Much I Hate These People later, but to run through the story is simple, especially if you've seen any of the myriad of found footage horror made this century. Justin just got a high tech video camera (which allows him the line "Thousand time zoom, bro!") and has naturally decided to test it out chronicling his trip to pal Kirk's cottage along with respective girlfriends Brooke and Amanda. Tagging along is Amanda's god-fearing fifth wheel little sister Danielle.
Because 25 year-olds with wealthy parents and apparently no other interests in life are awesome, Kirk takes the gang on a diversion to score some half priced beer at an off-the-beaten-track abandoned mining town he found online. Though we don't see their interaction with what we assume is a Cabin In the Woods-style harbinger (he's quoted and everything), we know enough to expect very bad things to happen to these fairly bad people.
The challenge I had in watching Crowsnest is that as a horror movie, it's fairly decent. There are a few outstanding jumps executed shockingly well. The lack of a soundtrack (something the occasional found footage film decides to use to disastrous effect) means sudden actions have that realistic come-from-nowhere effect that sleeker studio releases often fail at. With the lights out, this could prove to genuinely scare some viewers.
The flip side is that Crowsnest falls victim to the three major dooming tricks of found footage:
1. Unlikable characters
I truly thought, and I'd love to hear validation on this, that the characters were intentionally being set up to be horrid. Perhaps director Brenton Spencer was going for a Hostel-ish trick of creating bratty leads so that we almost think we want terrible things to happen to them, before realizing even the smarmiest white college boy doesn't deserve THAT. There's a chance that was indeed the plan. It's hard to imagine writer John Sheppard could have had his male characters trading lines like "when the river runs red, take the dirt road instead" to get a laugh. All five of Crowsnest's characters are spoiled, irresponsible, whiny, screechy, and not anywhere near as charming as they think they are. No, they don't deserve foot amputations, but wouldn't it work better as a film if they, I don't know, also didn't deserve a lesser toe amputation?
2. Shake your cam-cam-camera
Movies like REC get the best of both worlds: they can maintain the immediacy of handheld horror while their setup allows them to display professional camerawork because the characters filming are in the industry. Crowsnest never makes any excuses for its characters wobbly filming. That's fine as an idea, but watching a camera bob back and forth for 80 minutes isn't anyone's idea of a good time.
3. Put the f*cking camera down
The Last Exorcism was presented as an earnest documentary. They wouldn't give up easily. Night vision made the cameras in Grave Encounters a necessary tool just as much as it was for our entertainment. Crowsnest doesn't have that luxury. There is nothing useful about lugging around a video camera when all of your energy should be utilized escaping multiple homicidal maniacs.
High Points
As mentioned earlier, Crowsnest does an excellent job on multiple counts in delivering out-of-nowhere scares
Low Points
Too bad I was rooting for those scares to prove fatal to all five of our maybe protagonists
Lessons Learned
When not drinking the wine coolers generally served at middle school parties, sexy girls always hog all the beer
Getting your head cut off really hurts
The best way to jump start a broken down vehicle is to be rear-ended
No, you don't have to go back for the camera. You never, ever, have to go back for the camera
Rent/Bury/Buy
Fans of found footage horror will actually find a few decent scares in Crowsnest. On the other hand, any viewer who prickles at seeing yet another batch of vacant pretty people do stupid things and pay for it might find the film insufferable. It's less than 90 minutes and streaming on Instant Watch, so the gamble is yours.
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