The Horror Show
Mr. Jones
by Karl Mueller
It’s no secret that I pick movies to watch based solely on the cover art. However, I don’t intentionally always pick found footage movies to watch. I swear that happens by accident, well, sometimes. This particular time it was. I was enamored by a cover depicting a silhouette of a guy with a tree growing out of him. My initial thought was that this was going to be about a guy who turned people into plants, much like Troll 2. If that was true, it was going to be awesome. However, Mr. Jones was about nothing of the sort. I was slightly disappointed by this fact.
The young couple Scott and Penny decide to live in a remote cabin for a year. This was the half-baked idea of Scott so he can work on a documentary. Reluctantly, Penny puts her photography career on hold for his plan. However, Scott takes a lazy turn a few weeks in and basically stops filming. This puts a strain on their relationship. One day, a hooded man steals Scott’s unaccompanied backpack. Scott follows him back to his dwelling and brings Penny with him. They break in, searching for his backpack. However, they discover horrific totem-like sculptures made from tree branches and animal bones. Penny recognizes the work as belonging to the mysterious Banksy-eque artist, Mr. Jones. He randomly mails people these totems. Scott and Penny realize they’ve discovered the subject of their documentary. However, there is something strange going on in the woods. Something dark. Something that Mr. Jones knows about.
Right, I’m not going to dance around the issue but this movie was found footage. At least it starts that way, I’ll elaborate, don’t worry. It started pretty obviously as found footage. Beyond the opening scene, however, it became a bit unclear. The couple argues in bed and I swore that the movie abandoned found footage at that point. I thought to myself, “Okay, they just established the movie in found footage and the rest will be normal.” Then, to my total surprise, the main character turns around and picks up the camera that was filming the scene. “You cheeky bastards,” I thought, “You tricked me and that was awesome.” For a while, the movie continues found footage normally but is interspersed with documentary footage. Then, about half way through the movie, it abandons the style entirely for a traditional shooting. I actually found that interesting, for lack of a better word. It doesn’t do it without purpose, the rest of movie actually takes place within nightmares. I’m pretty sure you can’t take your cameras in your dreams with you. I actually really liked this approach because they captured the dreamlike quality well, at least my dreams. It manages to incorporate the visual darkness of dreams as well as dream logic. The split between dreams and reality was actually quite clever. The found footage serves to ground us in reality.
The primary problem prevalent in the movie is that it’s incredibly hard to see what’s going on. Everything is so dark and the camera is so shaky it just becomes frustrating because I’m sure what’s happening is actually awesome. My primary example is when Mr. Jones confronts the couple at the cabin. He runs towards them and then something happens, he disappears and blood flies (or at least I think its blood). I rewound the film a couple times in order to clarify what was actually happening…and nothing. It’s as equally unclear the thirteenth time as the first.
The entire movie also builds up to this creature or something deep in the woods. You don’t actually see it for a while. However, when you do, it’s a huge let down. I don’t want to go into details, just in case you decide to watch it. I will say that it takes a Resolution-esque turn, or should I say a straight rip-off. Needlessly, their computer screen starts showing captured footage of them that no one recorded, eventually switching to a live stream with no visible camera present. It was an exact rip-off from the scene in Resolution. I’m not entirely sure why director Karl Mueller decided to do this. Resolution was a meta movie and thusly it was not without purpose. I feel like he saw that scene and thought it would be a cool addition to his movie. It also feels like Mueller is trying to make some sort of statement by trying to make the film look meta, but in reality it’s just on a superficial level.
Overall, I think I liked the movie. It was nothing special and I’ll probably never watch it again. I mean, it started really strong but fell apart closer to the ending, and at the very end…don’t get me started. Actually it’s too late, the ending was far too predictable. I predicted it approximately twenty minutes into the movie. The performances of the lead roles by Jon Foster and Sarah Jones I found to be quite exceptional. Foster reminds me of a poor man’s David Tenant. I actually mistook Jones for Reese Witherspoon. That reminds me of a terribly awesome joke. Did you hear about that actress Reese who was murdered? Witherspoon? No with-her-knife. Ha ha ha… ha?
Alright, back to topic. This movie had a unique concept and that was what initially drew me in. The execution in the latter half of the film just sucked the life out of the movie. Sadly, I can’t help but feel that a movie about a man turning into a tree would have been much more fun.
Billy Wayne Martin, HMS
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