Life of Belle review.
Found footage that plays out like a suburban nightmare you’d find on Unsolved Mysteries.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Streaming on Screambox May 17
Life of Belle
Directed by Shawn Robinson
Written by Shawn Robinson
Starring Syrene Robinson, Sarah Mae Robinson, Zachary Robinson, Matthew Robinson, Lilli Albert, Kelly Black and Lyla Black
Life of Belle Review
One of the best ways that movies have utilized the found footage format in recent years is to use it to enhance what is, essentially, a true crime story. The Horror in the High Desert movies present their cases as if they were lost episodes of Unsolved Mysteries with found footage in place of reenactments. It’s an incredibly effective way to engross you in the story…and make you forget that you are watching the oft dreaded found footage format. Life of Belle restricts its talking heads and news reports to the opening of the film…but it contextualizes the purportedly found footage that follows in a way that effectively shrouds it in dread.
Life of Belle opens with the body cam footage of a policeman. He is investigating a home…where he finds three bodies. A news report follows complete with brief interviews with neighbors. A family is dead…and their 8-year-old daughter Anabelle is missing. What follows is footage largely shot by Anabelle before her disappearance.
We’ve discussed many times the two important parts of successful found footage films. First, must invest you in the characters before the bad thing happens. Second, it must go appropriately bonkers when the time finally comes. Life of Belle does a strong job with the first part. It opts for a subtle climax…one that pays things off in a surprising way. What happens in between introductions and endings is where Life of Belle truly shines.
Life of Belle is the name of both the film and the home movies that Anabelle is making within it. Since we are presented with a mystery and a three dead bodies…even the happiest moments in the footage are tinged with a feeling of inevitable tragedy. Much of the story relies on the performances of Belle (Syrenne Robinson) and her brother Link (Zachary Robinson). Child actors can derail a movie as quickly as anything…but they do a fantastic job here. When things start getting bad…and bad in a way that would be outright terrifying for a child…the pair absolutely crush it. They’re very good in the quieter moments as well. They excel in the harder moments. Their screams of terror can be hard to take with the realism they bring to the moments.
Things begin to fall apart slowly around Belle and Link. Their mother (Sarah Mae Robinson) is struggling with something. She wakes up screaming from nightmares…talks to people that no one can see…walks around the house alone in the darkness of night. Her husband confronts her about whether she is taking her medication. What makes this all work so well is that it’s not the point of the footage. It’s happening in the background of Anabelle’s home movies. It feels like we are watching something that we aren’t supposed to see. Her slow descent into apparent madness feels real from this accidental voyeuristic point of view.
Things accelerate when the father heads out of town on business. Belle and Link are now trapped in a house with a mother who goes from loving to crazed at a moment’s notice. She begins to talk about protecting her family from something…something only she can see…something that she will go to any length to prevent her family from. Given the story is set to end with a missing person and a trio of bodies…the mother’s emotional collapse feels harrowing from the children’s perspective.
Life of Belle is a surprisingly effective bit of children in peril. A most impressive effort filmed on a micro-budget. When I say micro-budget…I mean, perhaps, the smallest we’ve ever seen. That takes the quality of the production here from impressive to downright miraculous. Writer/director Shawn Robinson turns to his family to fill the roles of the in-film family members. It pays off with a chemistry that money can’t buy. They feel like real siblings going through actual hell. Their terror feels real. That’s how Life of Belle wins the hardest battle that found footage movies face.
Scare Value
Life of Belle pulls off the hardest trick that found footage movies have to do…it feels real. The ticking clock it places on what happens to the family works…and becomes a true nightmare for the children. It’s an effective way to investigate a faux true crime story. The sense of dread that hangs over every happy moment can make for an appropriately harrowing experience.
3.5/5
Life of Belle Link
Streaming on Screambox May 17
