Evidence of Good Found Footage

It seems I swim through a lot of crap to get to some decent found footage horror these days. Evidence is I'm please to announce pretty damn good low budget horror. It starts off like a hundred others in the genre. Four friends are going for a camping trip and one of them wants to make a documentary. So far so blah blah blah. There's the requisite flash of boobs and a quick lesbian kiss to keep easily amused folk happy and then it starts descending into sub-Blair Witch arguments over why the cameraman is still filming and what are those noises in the night.

Some of the group want to go home, Ryan the budding documentary maker is getting just what he wants; some good footage of his friends freaking out for his documentary. They set up camp, drink, argue, spot a quick glimpse of a strange black creature and hear scary sounds while sitting round the campfire. Then predictably one goes missing. This is the point where so many found footage films fall apart with endless poorly lit scenes where you have little idea of what is going on except that people are running, screaming and scared. Their phones don't work, their RV is vandalised and they are stuck. Then another of their number goes missing and Evidence takes a wonderful turn towards the WTF!?

To say any more would be to spoil it but I actually found the rest of Evidence very enjoyable. The stuff before was ok and not nearly as annoying as other found footage examples. The latter parts still have a lot of running aimlessly and screaming but what it is the remaining characters are running and screaming from and about is brilliant. It's ludicrous of course but so was The Cabin in the Woods and that's vaguely what this reminded me of. It throws everything at the screen and looks pretty great despite the low budget. The characters lose out in all the running and its a shame that the found footage format suffers because so much time is spent not seeing the characters' faces or giving them a chance to breathe.

On the other hand this gets very exciting and kept me guessing what the hell was going on right till the very end. As usual  for found footage it barely fills its 75 minute running time but it is inventive, a little scary and completely bonkers. I recommend seeking out Evidence if you're a fan of this sort of thing. I even hope they make a sequel.

Check out the trailer: