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Rating: Unusual and Unexpected Horror (year 1999) preceded by incredible premises and followed by tremendous public success.
It almost seems like a true story, that of three young people intent on uncovering the hidden truths of an old local legend. Instead, it turns out to be an impressive and cleverly constructed media fabrication. The film's promotion created the necessary depth to make it even more haunting. The Internet was the key, among other things quite economical, to the spread of seemingly true news about the disappearance of three individuals keen on investigating a local legend of a small town in Maryland, USA. The choice to give everything a documentary style was brilliant. Brilliant was the choice to exacerbate the viewer with a deliberately banal, uncertain, confused, chaotic, and dark directorial structure. Brilliant was the starting point, born from a local collective neurosis.
The basis of this pseudo-documentary is the limited perception of everything that is involved (sounds, lights, settings). Suspense is the key to a crescendo of neurosis for the three protagonists. The resulting film collage derails from the standards of classic horror. It disgusts and surprises, disorients and distorts, with its haunting vein of underworld realism. This is not a film for escapism but rather a damnably unique and clever anti-aesthetic piece. The pretext is to delve into a local psychosis, namely a witch with a penchant for very young victims. Three young people will get lost in the Maryland woods to uncover the mysterious disappearances of children and debunk (or confirm) the presence of this evil figure, a product of obsession and legend. The three youngsters will lose themselves and their goal in the most dramatic, hysterical, and distressing way possible.
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