Chattanooga Film Festival 2026 Coverage
NoClip 3: The Chattanooga Syndrome review
The third NoClip movie shakes things up in search of the truth
Festival movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
NoClip 3: The Chattanooga Syndrome
Directed by Gavin Charles and Alex Conn
Written by Gavin Charles and Alex Conn
Starring Gavin Charles and Alex Conn
NoClip 3: The Chattanooga Syndrome Review
Before Backrooms took the box office by storm, NoClip took the festival circuit by…well…not exactly by storm if you listen to its creators/stars in this meta-heavy third installment. They even pour over some of the reviews of the first film to make their point. I reviewed NoClip during that festival run. My review wasn’t negative enough to make the cut. I considered it, flaws and all, to have been a worthwhile experiment. I liked NoClip 2: Return to Lunchland even more. I felt that they had tapped into something interesting by expanding their search for liminal spaces to include subtle commentary on how many of our old haunts had been turned into them by time. NoClip 3: The Chattanooga Syndrome takes place during the world premiere of NoClip 2 at, appropriately, The Chattanooga Film Festival.
Gavin Charles and Alex Conn have written, directed and starred in all 3 NoClip movies. They make clear throughout The Chattanooga Syndrome that, unlike Parts 1 and 2…this one is taking place in the real world. Those other chapters were movies. The point being that you’re watching more of a documentary than a narrative film. If that sounds like a gimmick it surprisingly doesn’t feel like one. In fact, it often feels very much the opposite. It sometimes feels like those reminders are offered up as an apology. As if they’re saying…this search for real liminal spaces and backrooms might not yield much. We aren’t in control of it. We’re just shooting it.
It’s that earnestness that makes NoClip 3: The Chattanooga Syndrome an interesting next step for this now yearly excursion into the empty corners of places we used to go. The first part of the film takes us to the world premiere of Return to Lunchland with its creators. The “real” versions of these people still like to get high, but they’re filled with very relatable fears and ambitions. When someone hates their movie…it hurts. If this section was meant to be a phony take sold on a genuine documentary…it does a hell of a job. Because it’s an engaging peak behind the curtains on what putting yourself and your idea out there for the world to see looks like. But NoClip 3: The Chattanooga Syndrome isn’t just a documentary about NoClip 2’s festival debut.
The bulk of NoClip 3 takes place in Chattanooga’s Eastgate Mall. The idea is simple…they thought a fun way to do a third movie would be to search out real liminal spaces as opposed to the planned settings they did for the first two films. It’s a clever concept that plays into the reality of the documentary portion of the movie. For a time, I expected the point of this to be a commentary on the sparseness of their previous films. You think nothing happens in NoClip? We’ll show you what nothing looks like. Strip away the surreal visual effects…take away any planning…show you what nothing really is. That may have even been a part of the plan…but what actually happens provides a different experience. They can’t help but try to make it work.
The title of NoClip 3 comes from a story one of the guys tells about the Chattanooga Syndrome. It’s a supposed local illness seemingly as mythical as the backrooms concept itself. Every time it’s brought up it sounds like it’s being pitched. Like this non-movie still needs a story…what if I had Chattanooga Syndrome? At times it almost seems like the two guys are split on what they’re doing with this segment. One keeps selling that they think they’re afflicted…the other asks if they think they could keep up the act the whole time. This doesn’t lead to a performance of a growing illness. It doesn’t lead to anything. But it tells us more about the people making these movies. NoClip 3 isn’t about selling something fake as real. It’s about creative minds unable to accept a boring reality.
That throughline pulls throughout the second half of The Chattanooga Syndrome. Yes, this is another movie about two guys getting high and walking around empty spaces. But they’re trying to fill it any way they can. Whether that means cutting to an animated sequence of their trip to a restaurant or trying to will an odd looking hallway into giving them just a bit more to work with. They might set out to show that liminal spaces are cool but, ultimately, not much to work with…but they end up confronted with wanting to work with them and that not being the point this time. As the lack of story searches for an ending…NoClip 3 finds the perfect one. Shoot something cool…realize it’s nothing…and let people know you’re aware that’s kind of a disappointment. What isn’t a disappointment is the journey to accepting that “nothing” isn’t something creative people can accept.
Scare Value
NoClip 2 found some interesting ideas in how many of our spaces have become liminal ones. NoClip 3 doesn’t always seem sure whether or not it knows what it’s trying to say…but it ends up saying something interesting anyway. By pulling the camera back and letting us see the people who have invested their efforts into making these movies…we learn something about the ups and downs of showing off your creation. Watching them walk through another empty space shows us even more about what it’s like to need to create them in the first place.
