Aaaaaaaaaaand we’re back. The long-running found footage anthology series strikes again and this time it’s pieced together around bits of one of those sensationalist “news” shows. This episode concerning a strange child who is not from this world and is being fed a shit-ton of television by the scientists researching him. The first story is about some youthful idiots heading to a lake for a good old time. Making sure to ignore the warning signs surrounding the body of water, the tomfoolery ends right-quick when some boating hijinks take a turn for the worst thanks to a sniper hidden on the shore. It’s a pretty damn effective scene and everyone ends up very dead… until they’re not. No Wake is an interesting bit concerning a macabre situation that just spins further and further out of control but doesn’t stick around long enough to be as good as it should be. God of Death has a natural disaster cause an old building to collapse on a popular morning news crew. A recovery team attempts to rescue who they can but outside of the terror and claustrophobia of being trapped inside a collapsing building, it seems the earthquake may have unleashed something ancient and even deadlier. It’s a strong outing that kind of blows the landing but the idea is cool enough to allow a certain degree of forgiveness. Performance art goes bad when an artistic protest of technology backfires in a wild and violent gory way. TKNOGD opens up with the one-woman performance involving the kind of slam poetry you’d find in a coffee house populated by teenagers who think their musicians and musicians who think their poets and a virtual reality demonstration that foolishly tampers where it really shouldn’t have. Don’t call forth a god and then get upset when you end up torn to pieces. Ambrosia captures home video of a family gathering that takes an unexpected route and ties up No Wake in a somewhat satisfying manner. Finally, Scott Derrickson’s Dreamkill presents a disturbing home invasion with audio of the frantic 911 call playing over the handheld footage of the killer and scored with a droning bit of nightmare music. Then the follow-up footage of the cops investigating it… fuck yeah, it’s starring James Ransone and Freddy Rodriguez. Shits weird because the opening footage of the murder doesn’t fit the timeline and the detectives are scratching their heads. More disturbing murders take place in the same style and things somehow get even weirder. It’s definitely unlike anything I’ve seen before in this series. It’s a gamble that pays off in the early going but loses steam as it comes to a close. The murder recordings are especially memorable because Derrickson is really fucking good at bringing the right level of disturbing to things. I mean, remember how effective those home movies were in Sinister? The wraparound, Total Copy, brings things to a close in a less than impressive way. It’s all ok and has some standout moments but the series seems to be aiming more towards camp than thrills.
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