Blair Witch: Overdose How to make a name for your picture if you are not an eminent director, whose every step in the cinema is watched by journalists from all over the world, each film of which invariably becomes a contender for all significant nominations of all known awards in the world, is purchased in thirty countries, translated into twenty languages and downloaded by millions of users of torrent trackers? How to draw attention to your work, if your script is not imbued with neither Brad Pitt, nor Johnny Depp, nor any other actor whose name is guaranteed to attract the attention of both avid moviegoers and ordinary people to the director? How to get the maximum number of viewers to see your film, if he did not like any major studio or at least not interested in a popular creator from the world of cinema, whose positive assessment could serve the film good publicity? In 1999, two young and unknown guys who dream of working in the genre of horror, found a way that will become one of the most vivid and widely known examples of how authors without money, no big names, no media support, can forever immortalize their work in the history of cinema, inventing not only a new subgenre, but also a new way to advertise the film. These people were the directors of the film The Blair Witch, who initially positioned their work as a documentary and claimed that the footage was found by police in the forests of Maryland, and the persons appearing on the recordings, on the contrary, and the trace was frozen. This story has become so widely known to film lovers and mere mortals that for many years after the release of the film, Daniel Myrica and Eduardo Sanchez, no one dared to repeat their trick with the same scope and audacity, but fourteen years later there was another unknown guy who dreamed of becoming a director who decided that the concept of “The Blair Witch” is still alive and beat it taking into account the realities of our entangled Internet era, offering the viewer not only a “restored” recording of a young girl’s overdose and some subsequent events, but also a difficult picture for a cruel one.
To begin with, let’s leave aside the numerous rumors and speculations that Justin Cole’s debut picture gave rise to, and focus on the simple fact that the entire film confirms – the director is anything but a documentary filmmaker, as he positioned himself initially, since his working methods are a typical behavioral model of the author of feature films, many of which focus on telling a story in a fascinating, interesting and beautiful way, but do not always engage in its comprehensive analysis and learn how the characters of their films actually behave, how they live and what motivates their actions. For the characters of his film, Justin Cole does nothing like this and if the film was truly documentary, he would use the exciting materials shot by the participants of the events on camera, dosed to enhance their terrifying effect, and the picture itself would be devoted to finding the backstory of each of the characters, trying to talk to everyone who was somehow involved in what is happening, providing the viewer with different versions of the story, from which he could choose the one in which he believes most. He would have shown an understanding that any of the characters were in this situation for a reason, and that the way each of them acted was just as grounded in something more than just one night's story or age or their social standing. But in another, the director succeeded - he really very carefully and carefully mounted his material so as to convince the viewer that he sees a recording of real events, and Justin Cole understands where the camera should be put aside, and where on the contrary, closely withdrawn, from which angles to shoot, where what is happening to hide, and where on the contrary to show in the format of "real time", not immediately moving to the next moment, where the voices of the characters are muffled, but where on the contrary to make them show miracles that the human speech apparatus in a stressful situation.
Since Justin Cole has already admitted that The Upper Footage (UPPER)" is just a legacy of the Blair Witch era, a conscious hoax, his work should be evaluated not only as a forgery for a documentary, but also as a feature film in the genre of mocumentary, the excess of which in the movie market causes the viewer about the same reaction that caused drugs in the odious Jackie, whose face wished to remain unknown throughout the film. Here the director also showed a talent for understanding what exactly the viewer would want to see, and gave the Facebook generation a crazy story with all the attractive scandalous components, told by a hand-held camera, and all the rest of the allegedly strong morality that spoiled representatives of the golden youth will do anything to get away with it, but is it not the most obvious option and maybe Justin Cole just tells the viewer what he wants to hear? If this story had happened to the lowest levels of society, would it have been told the same way? Of course, no, the director would talk about poverty, inattentive parents, alcohol and hatred, because while demanding equal justice for people of all social strata, you can portray representatives of one demonic offspring, driven only by instincts? It’s a good story for the tabloids, but it doesn’t say much about a situation that many would like to understand, and what makes young people who have everything so insecure and pathetic? What do they feel and how do they think, not in public, but in private? As a result, in terms of morality, the author succeeded only in showing that drug overdose does not look so romantic as young people, whose blogs are filled with “spiritualized” photos of bruises and bruises, it sometimes represents, and Justin Cole’s work is not without some charm and well-performed flirtation with the mocumentary genre, but does not go anywhere further and absolutely certainly does not revolutionize the old and not good story about the vices of representatives of golden youth.