LogFAQs > #961843227

NFUN posted...

anything horror related

At the start of 2022, a bug bit me: I was on a found-footage horror kick, a genre that's been as popular for decades now as much as it has been derided. It seems anyone with a camera could make their own found-footage film, and that's both the appeal and the genre's main point of downfall and criticism but I truly believe it has led to some of the most intense, scariest, and realistic horror projects since the genre's inception with films like Peeping Tom, The Connection, and later greatly expanded upon in Cannibal Holocaust. However, it was the explosion of The Blair Witch Project in 1999 that really created the genre as we know it today. Love it or hate it, it was one of the most influential horror films of all time and gave us masterpieces like Lake Mungo, the Creep series, & Noroi: The Curse. These films are made by their simplicity & their authenticity. Blair Witch was a solid attempt at crafting anxiety out of the mundane, but two decades removed from its release cracks in its "realism" show everywhere. There's no mystery in that film anymore. It feels too calculated, cold, professional. Lake Mungo on the other hand feels like a teen's genuine project made in the grief after his sister's death, made to cope and aid his family. A film like Savageland could genuinely feel like a true crime documentary if you just stumbled upon it on one day without knowing anything about it. Yes, these films are ultimately calculated out as well, but the genius and horror is found in how these film's express themselves through their devotion to realism. And that's where Be My Cat: A Film for Anne, perhaps the single most disturbing film I have ever seen, draws its greatest strength from.

The premise is simple: Adrian, an aspiring Romanian filmmaker, is desperately seeking the attention of his favorite actress: Anne Hathaway to star in his movie. To achieve this, he recruits three actresses (who all bear passing resemblance to Hathaway) to film a fake movie in hopes of courting Anne to Romania. This fake movie quickly devolves further into a depraved snuff film, all while Adrian claims he's "in character" to impress Anne with his directorial & acting skills. Adrian is portrayed by Adrian ofei, and Be My Cat was actually his first film and first acting job and he just absolutely blew me away with his performance. He's a pure natural, a true master at portraying a psychopath effortlessly blurring the lines between Adrian the filmmaker, Adrian the actor, and Adrian "the character" until there really isn't any lines left to blur. You spend every minute with Adrian, up close and personal with his perspective, his cruel attacks and derisions towards his actresses, his stone-cold manipulation as he lies straight to their faces. It's a film that shocked me so much I had to pause after certain scenes to catch my breath and remind myself that this indeed truly was, only a film. This may sound weird to say, but eventually you realize Adrian's snuff film isn't necessarily the scariest part: it's the fact that he's so far gone that up until the very end he believes Anne Hathaway will still do a film with him even after everything sadistic and uncaring action he has done. It's a fractured mental state you don't have to look for too hard in reality, from the stalkers of celebrities like Bjork and Taylor Swift, to others that weren't so lucky, such as Rebecca Schaeffer where such an incident sadly ended with her murder.

It's not a pleasant watch and it's not a fun time, but it is important and effective. It's uncomfortable films like Be My Cat that found-footage was invented for. It gives us a chance to invade the headspace of an average joe caught up in a bad situation or that of a person out to do no good and what it's like to witness that second hand whilst being powerless to stop it. It's a genre not going anywhere anytime soon, and if someone wants to nominate a part two to this, please do because there's a lot more I want to talk about!

By the way you can watch the film free on Youtube, but if you can, support Adrian (the real life actor!) because he's a genuinely cool guy and fantastic creative force and pretty much made this film all on his own:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_igXu4TxLg&t=733s