By Quin
Hungarian found footage? Sure, why the hell not. As some of you know by now, I’m quite often still suckered in to a wide array of found footage films. I take full responsibility for my taste, or lack thereof. But I can’t help it. I appreciate a finely crafted horror film with a tiny budget. The sub-genre automatically gives the low-budget a purpose. Unfortunately, finding the well crafted ones is rare. From the description, Bodom seemed promising to me. I still don’t know a lot about the Lake Bodom Murders of 1960. The film gives a brief overview and sprinkles in a few theories along the way, but I had to rely on good old Wikipedia to tell me more about what happened there. There are certainly more than a few similarities between the Lake Bodom Murders and the Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. Both have gone mostly unsolved and both have had individuals take the blame temporarily. Each of them also had massive media attention surrounding the aftermath. While in my mind, the West Memphis Three are clearly innocent of the crimes in Arkansas, I have no opinion on the Lake Bodom Murders – and the movie doesn’t move me any closer to having one. I do know that there was one survivor at the time and he wasn’t convicted and tried until 2004. That’s a really long time. And after all of that he was acquitted a year later.
Lake Bodom is west of Helsinki in Finland. The two main characters of the film are media students at the University of Rovaniemi, which is much further to the north in Finland. The film doesn’t leave Finland as far as I could tell, yet the film claims to be the first found footage film made in Hungary. That is way south, across the Baltic Sea, below Poland and Slovakia. Now I don’t know if they shot in Hungary and called it Finland, which is okay with me; but something smells fishy, and the confusion over geographical locations in this movie is just the tip of the iceberg. The movie isn’t bad. It actually gets quite a few things right. But the story and motivation of the characters make crazy jumps in logic throughout. This is normal to most horror fans, I’m sure, and even forgivable. But Bodom doesn’t ever deliver any horror. It’s all set-up, with a twist that comes super late.
Fifty years after the Lake Bodom Murders, two students decide to do their thesis on the unsolved crime. Annikki and Pietari pack up their things and hop a plane for Lake Bodom. Since this is a found footage film, we are lead to believe that the two don’t survive the trip. And as per usual we are shown their shaky cam footage.
Most of what we see for a large portion of the film is the two students bickering with each other. There is almost as much nastiness as in an episode of the Housewives of Beverly Hills. In fact, the drama goes so far overboard, that I really had a hard time caring about either one of them. Eventually we find out that they have actually known each other a long time, and the drama goes further back into their past.
So what is the point of all of this, you ask? Seems like an investigation of an old murder is just the backdrop of some personal drama. Some revelations are revealed. People begin to behave strangely. Two strangers appear on the scene for some partying and then something else. But in the movie’s 64 minute running length, the excitement doesn’t really start until the last 25 minutes. Annikki goes into a trance and when she wakes up, she has no idea how she got there. Then an object referred to as a rattler (possibly like a baby rattle?) is found wrapped up on the porch. It is at this point when Annikki reveals that she has been receiving bizarre and random items like this on a monthly basis for years. Again, I bet you’re asking what is the point? I honestly don’t know. On one hand the movie is dull yet straight forward. But there are so many head scratching details that just don’t make any sense.
I didn’t hate Bodom. It was watchable, well acted for the most part and well directed. But be sure you aren’t sleepy, because there are some really fast moving subtitles. If you are a found footage completest, then this might be satisfying viewing, but overall there is nothing new here. I guess the film will always have the alleged honor of being the first found footage film made in Hungary – but to me, that’s as big a mystery as the Lake Bodom Murders.
Bodom will be released to DVD and VOD in the US and Canada later this year from Continuum Motion Pictures – watch this space for confirmed dates.