Most found footage horror movies only rate about a 1 or 2 even when, to be charitable, you only rate and review them relative to others of their own kind. THE BLACKWELL GHOST does bill itself officially as a "documentary" but it's structurally and procedurally indistinguishable from a found footage horror movie. Remarkably, in a field largely populated by 1's and 2's, THE BLACKWELL GHOST probably ranks as a reasonably solid 5 and does so around a "less is more" approach.
The movie only has three characters: Turner Clay who does practically everything, including most of the filming and is the star, his wife, and a fellow named Greg who is the owner of the haunted house that is most of the focus of the film.
In general, the plot line is simple but sturdy. Turner has decided he's tired of making low-end zombie movies and thinks it might be fun to make a pet project movie that "proves" the existence of ghosts, assuming that he can. It's not that he particularly believes in ghosts, but he just thinks it might make a worthwhile "documentary" if he can pull it off.
After a bumpy start, having posted his interest in haunting stories on some appropriate forums, he is contacted by a man named Greg who says he owns and has lived in a haunted house for nearly half a century. So off Turner and his wife go to Greg's house to spend a few days and see if they can't catch something on film. Ostensibly this should be easy since Greg calmly tells Turner that paranormal activities pop up almost every day and at least every other day.
Why all the ghostly activity? Well, several decades ago a crazy lady by the name of Ruth Blackwell lived in the house and, for some unspecified reason, decided to murder a few local children, chop them into pieces, and drop them down the old well in the basement of the house. Alrighty then... Does sound like a surefire recipe for ghosts to me.
THE BLACKWELL GHOST follows the usual found footage recipe of filming mostly mundane activities while building to a few-minutes-long crescendo of extra scary stuff right before the end. Usually there isn't enough interesting action to fill an entire movie and so it pretty much has to be all compressed into the end to get viewers to hang on long enough to see the entire picture.
If there were any fewer special-effects in THE BLACKWELL GHOST there wouldn't be any at all. You never actually SEE any paranormal activity at all, just the after effects. Various noises, thumping's, and banging sounds, doors which were closed are found open, various faucets turned on repeatedly no matter how often you turn them off, a kitchen stove that turns itself on, and vague, barely perceptible whitish shadows moving across frame are all you ever get in terms of paranormal activity. In fact, the happenings are so low-key that Turner's wife, who is in the same house WITH Turner WHILE everything is happening mind you, doesn't even believe anything unusual is going on. It's just her big, doofus husband being himself.
What makes THE BLACKWELL GHOST better than most in its genre, in spite of its meager pallet, is a small collection of stylistic elements that Turner Clay manages to imbue into the movie. I suppose the keyword here would be "believability", which is something lacking in most found footage movies. Turner himself is a large, rather affable and pleasant fellow whose demeanor is pleasant and low-key and lends an air of "genuineness" to the proceedings. Turner's wife does a good job being a wife that clearly thinks her husband is being a doofus but is making at least a minimal effort to be supportive.
Greg comes across as sincere and legitimate for the few minutes that we see him discussing his experiences in his haunted house. It does, however, stretch credulity to the breaking point when we hear Greg calmly discuss the fact that he's been living in this situation for more than half a century. He's just, you know, a regular guy living alone in a very actively haunted house all by himself in a regular old residential neighborhood for half a century. Uh huh.
The set up and premise of the movie seems to be more believable than what one usually gets in most found footage movies, or is, at the very least, far less outlandish. The basement that is the apparent origin of the hauntings creeps the hell out of you just sitting there; that is seriously one of the creepiest damn basements I have ever seen. And supposedly, right there in the corner, is the very same notorious well that some insane woman dumped diced children into.
Even the fact that the movie has an unusually short run time, a few seconds less than an hour with credits included, works for the movie because you don't have time to have your eyes rolling up with boredom as you do with most such movies.
But do notice that I only said it's about a 5. As better as it is than most found footage movies, it still has glaring holes. Here's two of them:
The haunted house homeowner, Greg, has been living in this house and experiencing "paranormal activity" on nearly a daily basis for half a century. Just the exposure that Turner received over the course of 2 or 3 days had him practically running screaming from the house by the end. The idea that someone would live with daily haunting activity for half a century is just not believable.
The execution of the well prop in the basement is simply ridiculous. It's depicted as a large, probably cast iron affair, standing about a foot high and bolted to the floor. Topping it off is a supposedly super-heavy manhole-cover-like lid. When we get a peek inside the well, we see that the water level is perhaps at most 5 inches below the top rim of the well which is significantly higher even than floor level. In the real world (in somewhat of a simplification), wells are drilled down to the basic water table which is nearly always tens or hundreds of feet below ground level. The depicted well has the water table level ABOVE the floor of the basement in dry weather. At the very least the basement should be flooded and perhaps the entire neighborhood should be slowly sinking out of sight into the ground.
So, as essentially a "let's make a movie in the garage" effort, THE BLACKWELL GHOST is worth watching and is generally more convincing than most in its field, even as lightweight as it is.
The movie only has three characters: Turner Clay who does practically everything, including most of the filming and is the star, his wife, and a fellow named Greg who is the owner of the haunted house that is most of the focus of the film.
In general, the plot line is simple but sturdy. Turner has decided he's tired of making low-end zombie movies and thinks it might be fun to make a pet project movie that "proves" the existence of ghosts, assuming that he can. It's not that he particularly believes in ghosts, but he just thinks it might make a worthwhile "documentary" if he can pull it off.
After a bumpy start, having posted his interest in haunting stories on some appropriate forums, he is contacted by a man named Greg who says he owns and has lived in a haunted house for nearly half a century. So off Turner and his wife go to Greg's house to spend a few days and see if they can't catch something on film. Ostensibly this should be easy since Greg calmly tells Turner that paranormal activities pop up almost every day and at least every other day.
Why all the ghostly activity? Well, several decades ago a crazy lady by the name of Ruth Blackwell lived in the house and, for some unspecified reason, decided to murder a few local children, chop them into pieces, and drop them down the old well in the basement of the house. Alrighty then... Does sound like a surefire recipe for ghosts to me.
THE BLACKWELL GHOST follows the usual found footage recipe of filming mostly mundane activities while building to a few-minutes-long crescendo of extra scary stuff right before the end. Usually there isn't enough interesting action to fill an entire movie and so it pretty much has to be all compressed into the end to get viewers to hang on long enough to see the entire picture.
If there were any fewer special-effects in THE BLACKWELL GHOST there wouldn't be any at all. You never actually SEE any paranormal activity at all, just the after effects. Various noises, thumping's, and banging sounds, doors which were closed are found open, various faucets turned on repeatedly no matter how often you turn them off, a kitchen stove that turns itself on, and vague, barely perceptible whitish shadows moving across frame are all you ever get in terms of paranormal activity. In fact, the happenings are so low-key that Turner's wife, who is in the same house WITH Turner WHILE everything is happening mind you, doesn't even believe anything unusual is going on. It's just her big, doofus husband being himself.
What makes THE BLACKWELL GHOST better than most in its genre, in spite of its meager pallet, is a small collection of stylistic elements that Turner Clay manages to imbue into the movie. I suppose the keyword here would be "believability", which is something lacking in most found footage movies. Turner himself is a large, rather affable and pleasant fellow whose demeanor is pleasant and low-key and lends an air of "genuineness" to the proceedings. Turner's wife does a good job being a wife that clearly thinks her husband is being a doofus but is making at least a minimal effort to be supportive.
Greg comes across as sincere and legitimate for the few minutes that we see him discussing his experiences in his haunted house. It does, however, stretch credulity to the breaking point when we hear Greg calmly discuss the fact that he's been living in this situation for more than half a century. He's just, you know, a regular guy living alone in a very actively haunted house all by himself in a regular old residential neighborhood for half a century. Uh huh.
The set up and premise of the movie seems to be more believable than what one usually gets in most found footage movies, or is, at the very least, far less outlandish. The basement that is the apparent origin of the hauntings creeps the hell out of you just sitting there; that is seriously one of the creepiest damn basements I have ever seen. And supposedly, right there in the corner, is the very same notorious well that some insane woman dumped diced children into.
Even the fact that the movie has an unusually short run time, a few seconds less than an hour with credits included, works for the movie because you don't have time to have your eyes rolling up with boredom as you do with most such movies.
But do notice that I only said it's about a 5. As better as it is than most found footage movies, it still has glaring holes. Here's two of them:
The haunted house homeowner, Greg, has been living in this house and experiencing "paranormal activity" on nearly a daily basis for half a century. Just the exposure that Turner received over the course of 2 or 3 days had him practically running screaming from the house by the end. The idea that someone would live with daily haunting activity for half a century is just not believable.
The execution of the well prop in the basement is simply ridiculous. It's depicted as a large, probably cast iron affair, standing about a foot high and bolted to the floor. Topping it off is a supposedly super-heavy manhole-cover-like lid. When we get a peek inside the well, we see that the water level is perhaps at most 5 inches below the top rim of the well which is significantly higher even than floor level. In the real world (in somewhat of a simplification), wells are drilled down to the basic water table which is nearly always tens or hundreds of feet below ground level. The depicted well has the water table level ABOVE the floor of the basement in dry weather. At the very least the basement should be flooded and perhaps the entire neighborhood should be slowly sinking out of sight into the ground.
So, as essentially a "let's make a movie in the garage" effort, THE BLACKWELL GHOST is worth watching and is generally more convincing than most in its field, even as lightweight as it is.
