www.collingswoodstory.comDir: Michael Constanza
Cast: Stephanie Dees, Johnny Burton, Vera Madeline, Grant Edmonds
They use their webcams
young boys murdered in her house
what's in the attic?
The Collingswood Story was a real audience splitter; some people really liked this small scale film whilst others found it to be a one-trick pony. For me, I fall somewhere in between the two camps. You see, the unique hook of this film is that it all takes place on webcams. We’re not talking My Little Eye, with hundreds of different cameras all linked up together, here it’s just Johnny (Burton) and his girlfriend Rebecca (Dees) - away at college - with occasional appearances from Johnny’s mate (Edmonds) and a psychic called Vera Madeline, whom Johnny contacts to perform a reading for Rebecca. When Vera gets a dose of the heebie-jeebies Johnny starts to do a bit of research on Rebecca’s new lodgings, and before you can say “Blair Witch” we’re looking at kids getting drowned in a bathtub and an ancient cult that originated in Lyon – although quite whether Rebecca’s pronunciation as “Lions” was intentional is unknown. Whilst comparisons to The Blair Witch Project are all too obvious, it’s actually closer in tone to BBC’s drama Ghost Watch in the way it investigates the paranormal and addresses its audience through the medium of the protagonist’s camera. With such a narrow scope the writing and performances need to be strong and they’re pretty solid. The narrative engages and draws you in, whilst the two main actors keep things from getting overly theatrical. Of course the advent of broadband makes some of the technology issues feel outdated, and the viability of Rebecca wandering around her attic with her laptop requires some suspension of disbelief, but it still manages to create a chilling atmosphere towards the end and certainly gave me a few chills.
soulmining rating: ***
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