Who’s Watching review
Don’t let the found footage label fool you…Who’s Watching found a brilliant way to use it.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Who’s Watching
Directed by Tim Kasher
Written by Tim Kasher
Starring Zachary Ray Sherman, Gracie Gillam and Olivia Luccardi
Who’s Watching Review
Found footage can be a tough sell. That doesn’t mean that there haven’t been some excellent found footage movies. There’s plenty of them out there. You’ll just find it hard to convince anyone who has sworn off of them to give anything under that label a shot. On one hand, it’s understandable. One thing that the found footage format has done is make filmmaking more accessible to people. I think this is a tremendous positive…but your more casual viewer has probably seen the same tricks too many times and has missed out on some of the innovation taking place in the space. It’s just shaky cameras in the woods, right?
Well…unfortunately that’s true as often as it isn’t and that’s been the reason the format has struggled to expand its reach. It’s true that a lot of low budget found footage movies follow a similar formula. People head into the woods to explore…something. They find/see/hear creepy stuff. Something finally happens in act 3…well after many viewers have lost interest. There’s a reason that this happens and it comes down to the accessibility we talked about. Found footage puts the ability to make movies into more people’s hands…but it doesn’t magically let them make a good one. Not having to set up complex lighting and pay a large crew saves money…but it doesn’t pay for a good idea.
Who’s Watching has a great idea. In fact, in its way, this movie redefines how found footage can be used as well as any film in recent memory. The idea behind how Who’s Watching uses its footage is so clever that it even manages to put a new spin on the classic tale of good vs. evil. And it’s all related to its pitch perfect title. Will these statements be enough to convince anyone who has sworn off the format to give this one a look? Probably not. But it should. Because I’ve watched as many found footage horror movies as anyone. And this one is really, really good.
Who’s Watching doesn’t just nail the first rule of found footage…it brilliantly turns it into an entire story engine. That rule is simple. Have a reason for this footage to exist in the first place. Yes, money deficient productions can turn to the concept to cut costs…but if there isn’t a reason for those cameras to be rolling in the first place…the story falls apart before it can even begin. In Who’s Watching…the cameras are the story. At least…who’s watching through them is.
This is a story that uses the concept to denote perspective. We meet a creepy guy named Caleb (Zachary Ray Sherman) who is obsessed with co-worker Krista (Gracie Gillam). It’s his camera that we’re watching the movie through. He’s “making a movie”. What he’s really doing is forcing us to wingman his creepy adventures of stalking, home invasion and eventual kidnapping. The movie doesn’t try to make us sympathize with him or like him or even understand him. There are creepy and dangerous people in this world…and this one is in control of the story.
Until he isn’t.
It took me a minute or two to even recognize that Who’s Watching pulls itself out of Caleb’s camera and briefly becomes a standard narrative picture. It didn’t take as long for me to recognize what that represented. Simply put…the shift is brilliant. The creep shooting the movie becomes a creep in a movie. Then Who’s Watching shifts again…and he becomes the creep in someone else’s camera. Without getting too far down the rabbit hole on what this movie is doing…I’ll just say that it’s a clever and rewarding shift. One that will resonate with people who enjoy the structure of horror stories and the dance between protagonists and antagonists. The movie doesn’t just find a new way to utilize found footage…it finds a new way to show the inevitable table turn on a story’s villain.
Most independent found footage movies wouldn’t break the immersion of Caleb’s film. They’d spend the first two acts slowly following along with him until ramping up as much as they can in the climax. Who’s Watching has thought through what these moments mean and turns them on themselves. Literally.
Scare Value
The structure of Who’s Watching was so exciting to me that I didn’t even get into much about the story itself. The creepy parts are creepy…the satisfying turns are satisfying…and Who’s Watching is a step ahead the entire time. Performances are great…the found footage portions aren’t distracting at all and, honestly, are more relevant to the plot here than most movies that employ the concept. Even if you’re one of the many who have been burned by found footage horror movies before…give Who’s Watching a try. It’s doing something different. It’s doing something better.
4/5
