‘Blue Hour’ Panic Fest 2023 Review: Impressive Sci-Fi Found Footage
Mary Beth McAndrews
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Just from the poster, Blue Hour, which played as part of the 2023 Panic Fest, tells you its basic conceit. As the logline says, this is “a true crime from another dimension”. And while that may feel like a spoiler, the way director Dan Bowhers reveals the story’s layers is wholly unique and infinitely fascinating. While it’s not entirely successful in execution, Blue Hour is still an intriguing film that takes big risks in creating a sci-fi world with a low-budget technique.
Olivia Brandreth is a documentary filmmaker whose father, Nick Brandreth, disappeared when she was a kid. While his disappearance was never truly solved, it was eventually ruled as suicide to try and provide closure. But Olivia never believed that and thinks there’s more to her father’s disappearance than meets the eye. She sets out to make a true crime documentary about her experience and hopes to find better answers. She interviews her family and her father’s close friends, searching for even a single crumb of new evidence. That’s when the photos re-surface.
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These black-and-white photos, taken by Olivia’s father, show men in mysterious black robes guarding what looks like a doorway in the middle of the woods. Of course, Olivia and her crew are quick to dismiss the photos as a basic Photoshop job capitalizing on fear. And yet, there is still part of Olivia that believes these images could be real. So, she does what any intrepid filmmaker would do: packs a backpack and heads straight into the woods.
Most of Blue Hour is anchored in reality and is trying to emulate those true crime series we all know and love. Films such as Lake Mungo and more recently Horror In The High Desert carefully emulate the beats and expectations of such shows, complete with interviews with loved ones and past photos and videos of the deceased or missing. Blue Hour follows a similar format, saving the end to fully reveal the bizarre mysteries at hand.
The mysteries at hand place this film squarely in the sci-fi horror camp, which is rare for found footage. Sci-fil films are so often thought of as high-budget alien invasion films or giant monster excursions. But here, Blue Hour shows how it can be accomplished on a lower budget with a handheld aesthetic. While the graphics are not always the best, that determination to still try in this sphere is impressive in and of itself.
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The biggest issue in Blue Hour is the uneven performances. The staged “interview” portions are awkward and not at all natural. They feel very scripted, and while they are, there’s no attempt to try and convince us otherwise. But then, the more off-the-cuff moments in the woods do feel natural. It’s bizarre to see the same actors deliver such different performances from scene to scene. That uneven tone across the performances is distracting and takes the viewer out of the film’s constructed reality. Films like The Poughkeepsie Tapes and the aforementioned Lake Mungo are able to effortlessly trick viewers into, even for a moment, believing they’re documents of reality, not works of fiction. Blue Hour tries to emulate that experience but is never fully able to lull the viewer into that false sense of reality.
Blue Hour is a weird experience that won’t be to everyone’s taste. But, if you’re willing to forgive some uneven acting and trust in this big swing in the name of sci-fi found footage, this is a film worth seeking out. It isn’t perfect, but that’s overshadowed by its ambition and willingness to play in spaces found footage hasn’t before. Hopefully, Blue Hour is a beacon of more sci-fi found footage on the horizon.
Summary
Blue Hour is a weird experience that won’t be to everyone’s taste. But, if you’re willing to forgive some uneven acting and trust in this big swing in the name of sci-fi found footage, this is a film worth seeking out.
