Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

SPOILERS AHEAD - This purports to be a firsthand documentary by a person who makes professional zombie horror movies. First crack in the illusion: he never gives us his last name nor the title of even one of the movies he supposedly made. If you've ever made and sold a movie, you will *never* pass up a chance to give yourself a free plug. He must have done well with these films as neither John NoLastNamenor his wife seem to have day jobs. Instead, they live in a beautifully appointed home with rich portraiture, and make casual trips in their private airplane at the drop of the hat. They travel to a Pennsylvania town they somehow never get around to naming (reality crack #2) and meet with the unnamed owner (RC #3) of a supposedly haunted house. The home is quite lovely, and the unnamed owner gives the back story that in the 1940s a woman killed neighborhood children and stuffed their remains into a well in the basement. John NoLastName is suitably creeped out, but his bland, wooden wife has no measurable reaction (RC #4). In fact, despite numerous inexplicable things happening in the film, she couldn't display genuine emotion if her life depended on it. (Maybe she is a zombie from his earlier work?) The owner of the house (who also has no last name) has no problem inviting these complete strangers that he has met only once to stay in it while he is away for an extended period (RC #5). Having no jobs to impede them, the couple flies back and gets the keys which were left on a window ledge maybe 10 feet away from the door (RC #6). Once inside, John--who described himself as brand new to the idea of paranormal investigation--nonetheless has a huge supply of tripod mounted night vision cameras, tripod mounted night vision lamps, 16 mm film camera, spare batteries, and so on (RC #7). Miss excitement doesn't blink an eye at this anymore than John feels compelled to explain this gaping plot point. It goes on and on, including calling the fire department (which we conveniently never see), calling the police (which we conveniently never see), and even dropping profanity while talking to these mythical police (something that would elicit anything but a casual response in rural PA!). I think we're up to RC 10 at this point. He then does research by calling the archivist of an unnamed library (RC11) who cheerfully agrees to email him over 4,000 microfilmed newspapers (ok, that's possible...if she sent him a link to online archives). John eventually finds the story he is looking for. He gives us a date, but once again fails to give us the name of the paper. He tells us the murderer is named Ruth Blackwell, but you will not find any hits on Google that lead to a newspaper article reporting these fantasy crimes. A few Pennsylvania web sites promoting ghost-hunting tourism in PA are apparently in on the gimmick, as what few hits you do land all go to cutesy articles about other PA hauntings, but never ever to an actual account of tangible persons, places, and things about any Blackwell murder in that state. Ever. And on and on and on. It is like a new Blair Witch Project made for people already trained by decades of paranormal shows to receive it. The audience is the clever one, the film has you believe, because you notice the orbs and he does not. Or you understand why the batteries always die and he is mystified (honestly? You're doing a documentary about the subject, you somehow managed to acquire most of the same equipment, and yet you never though to review your footage as soon as you wake up, or to notice things like flickering in images? You can miss this much and yet still are somehow an accomplished, rich horror film maker? Surrrrrrre.) So the joke is really on us as this this person who understands everything about this fiction of his artfully manages to come off as this goofy, guileless, average man. I don't know if this John wrote this piece (RC number infinity: no credits to writer, no director, no producer, nothing), but regardless, his acting in the role is really very good. A whole lot of fun, but do not confuse it with reality!