By Ben Bussey
I’ve been mad at this film ever since I first saw the trailer for it last month. Initially, this was because every time I read the title I got that damn Michael Jackson song stuck in my head. But now that I’ve seen it, I’m mad because it’s yet another example of an independent horror movie that could have been so much more, yet despite flashes of brilliance ultimately fails to deliver its full potential. Director Derek Mungor is to be admired for attempting a new approach to the slasher movie format by shooting You Are Not Alone in a first person perspective – not, we should emphasise, a found footage style – and to a point the film does succeed in bringing a fresh and unusual aesthetic to the table. If only we could say the same of its storytelling, we might have been onto a real winner here.
Plot-wise, it’s all very simple. We see the events that pass over 4th of July weekend through the eyes of Natalie (the permanently unseen Krista Dzialoszynski), a Minneapolis college girl who returns, we suspect somewhat unwillingly, to her sleepy home town for the summer. It’s all pretty humdrum at first – reunions with her brother, their grandma, her friends – but beyond all this there’s something of a shadow hanging over the town, as a serial killer is known to be on the loose nearby, and the local sheriff, also the father of Natalie’s best friend Katie (Nikki Pierce), has ordered an 11pm curfew. Still, the young folk in town aren’t about to let this stop them, and after the fireworks comes a heavily alcohol-fueled house party. But after staggering home in the early hours, Natalie comes to the alarming realisation that a strange man is lurking outside, with the intent of getting in.
The 2012 Maniac remake proved there’s a lot to be said for taking a first person perspective for the duration of a horror movie; and by showing the action exclusively from the killer’s point of view, making the viewer that bit more complicit in the horrific acts that ensue, Franck Khalfoun’s movie made for a genuinely unnerving experience. It’s entirely logical that another horror movie might take a similar approach, but showing us instead the world through the eyes of the would-be victim; the real point of viewer identification, as anyone who’s read Carol Clover can tell you. Indeed, this has arguably been the key aim of the found footage genre (beyond allowing filmmakers to get away with making movies for peanuts, that is): to put us directly into the shoes of the protagonists, and make their fear and anguish our own.
Calling You Are Not Alone a first person POV movie rather than a found footage movie might at first seem little more than a matter of semantics, but it really isn’t. First off, we can do away with the always difficult question of why someone facing certain death wouldn’t just drop the fucking camera and leg it; secondly, we can also stop using it as an excuse for a lousy-looking film. This is the key thing to be said in favour of You Are Not Alone: it really does look great. IMDb lists the film’s budget as an estimated $20,000, just over $8,000 of which came from Kickstarter, and if that’s accurate that is truly impressive, as there are plenty of modern movies in that budget range that look worse than a 1992 wedding video. Director Mungor and cinematographer Ryan Glover have produced something that looks truly filmic, with a warm, clean, organic feel, and the first person approach works beautifully; small, subtle shifts in focus help convey Natalie’s state of mind, and while inevitably the camera is constantly on the move it never lapses into incoherent shakey-cam.
As a technical exercise, then, You Are Not Alone is quite a triumph. It’s also very well acted. Unfortunately, Mungor and co-writer Chris O’Brien’s storytelling leaves quite a lot to be desired. The first red flag came up for me in the opening minutes when, whilst recounting a story of a camping mishap, Natalie’s brother Garrett (David O’Brien) looks directly at his sister – i.e., straight into the camera – and says “and I’m thinking, ‘this is how horror movies start.'” I guess they were aiming for a nice knowing wink to the audience, but it just rings hollow, and not only because such self-aware dialogue has long since been a tired cliche (Scream was twenty years ago people, TWENTY YEARS – and it was tired by the time of Scream 2). No, the real problem is that, beyond that point, very, very little of You Are Not Alone is indicative of how horror movies start. The first 45 minutes of the film simply follow Natalie around, with a number of strangely overlong and unnecessary sequences (a visit to a drug dealer friend’s house, for one) which ultimately have little to no bearing on the ultimate outcome of the film. Yes, we’re told occasionally there’s a killer on the loose and a curfew in place, but never do we get the sense that Natalie is being followed or that she and her friends are under threat. Worst of all, once the maniac does indeed come after her, all those friends – the people we’ve spent so much time getting to know – are nowhere to be seen. All that build-up and character work was seemingly for nothing, and the entire first half of the film winds up feeling like an irrelevant waste.
But does the first person perspective make up for that? Does it make for the uniquely realistic and terrifying experience that the review quotes in the publicity suggest? I wish I could say otherwise, but I really can’t say I found You Are Not Alone especially scary, and certainly not any more realistic than your standard slasher. Too many times our final girl does all those dumb things you know they shouldn’t do; doesn’t call the cops, doesn’t scream for help at the top of her lungs the second she gets outside, doesn’t seize the many opportunities to kill the killer herself, and perhaps most egregiously does little or nothing to protect the others she crosses paths with who wind up in the killer’s sights. The final stalk sequence just drags on until you’re past the point of caring, leading to a finale in which our protagonist winds up having almost no effect on the outcome, leaving you questioning what the point was.
It really does make me sad to have to describe You Are Not Alone in this way, as it’s clearly the work of skilled and creative people who have it in them to do great work. Again, it’s a very refreshing change to see something made on such a low budget that looks as good as any big-budget horror movie – but looks aren’t everything, and they really needed to make sure this movie had a lot more going on under the surface.
You Are Not Alone is out on DVD in the UK on 22nd February, from Sharp Teeth Films.