Directed by Joby Stephens

Review by Hunter King

Found footage films are certainly not new to the horror genre, and many of them follow the same recipe. A couple of people go to a place where they are not supposed to, they encounter something sinister, and the camera catches glimpses of it before quickly panning away to see an up close look at the protagonist holding the camera. Perhaps when The Blair Witch Project did this in 1999 it was inventive and exciting, but now these films are pretty common and usually are trying to do what Blair Witch did with lesser success. This is the case for Joby Stephens’ new hybrid found footage flick Abandoned which premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The film primarily features two characters, Jess (Grace Gallager) and Adam (Cameron Wight) who are urban explorers for a small following on a video sharing website. Jess is struggling with the channel and looking for other opportunities, while Adam is committed to the channel but is unreliable and problematic as a partner to Jess. When Adam foolishly loses an expensive drone over an abandoned (hence the title) hospital building, they have to sneak in and try to get it back, but are haunted by the weird and unnatural presences within its walls.

Gallager brings a competent nature to Jess, despite having very little in the way of meaningful dialogue, her character seems smart enough in the situation that they’re in. She also provides most of the meaningful scared performance to the film. Acting as the film’s classic “final girl,” Gallager is able to perform her fear in a way that feels authentic and makes the danger of the situation feel more real.

Wight plays Adam with a naivety and brash unawareness that is common in narcissistic men like Adam. Wight’s portrayal of the character is believable and strong, but the script doesn’t do him many favors. In many scenes the script seems conflicted on whether the audience should like Adam or not, constantly giving him moments of trying to be empathetic, then immediately undercutting them with idiocy led by his arrogance.

The film does hold some sense of anticipation and dread, but the final payoff makes the film feel overall not worth it. Once entities are revealed and seen on camera they are shown far too much, removing the suspense from them entirely. They then have an almost comic wrestling match through the hospital that quickly removes any sort of fear that the audience may have had from seeing them. Additionally, the hybridity of switching between found footage and classic filming works in the early moments of the film, but when the monster is shown on a grainy smartphone footage and then suddenly transitioned to a high definition shot, it once again shows far too much. 

Abandoned is not a bad film at all. It simply falls into pitfalls that are common in this specific subgenre of horror films and can’t quite find its footing to escape. 

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