Devil's Backbone, Texas (2015)

I watched this last night and was pleasantly surprised.The overall concept of the film works. It takes an overused genre and adds a unique, compelling spin. The director/writer/star's father is the subject of the first half of the film (done documentary style) and interweaves a current ghost story into the works. The film's first half works REALLY well-it is interesting and the subjects (the real family) are good in the interviews. The film isn't quite as successful with the ghost story second half, but this transition from non fiction to fiction would be tough for anyone to accomplish. It is clear the auteur is expressing real emotion on camera and it works. Overall, a good spin on a genre that needs creative injections such as this.

In January 1996, Robert Stack and Unsolved Mysteries featured a story on landowner Bert Wall's interactions with the spirits that roamed the Devil's Backbone. The tale goes that he was quite a bizarre person, and spent a lot of time in solitude.Nearly twenty years later, Wall passed away, leaving behind tales of an inexplicable terror to those that knew him best.So his estranged son decides to,do,the right thing after seeing the documentary, and go and seek the truth about his father, and lay him to rest in a ceremony....It's another found footage movie that starts off particularly well, and very authentic. The makers go down the Blair Witch route of interviewing townsfolk. Some maybe real, some may not be, but what they are definitely full of boring stories, and the camera focuses on the for too long.What worked with Blair.... was the interviews were extremely short, short enough for you not to think about the myths, short enough to make you uneasy.These just linger, and by the time they reach the place they are supposed to be going to, the films nearly over, and you couldn't care less about them.So the son goes about bonkers, there is a phantom car, and just before you can say Scooby Doo!, its all over after a silly attempt and and really misjudged jump scare.It's as if the jump scare was add to prompt the audience to know that the film is over.Believe me, you lost my attention way before the ending.Don't bother...

Not many, but I've seen worse. It starts off promising with a son looking for closure after his father's death, bringing a few friends for a simply ceremony. He makes it all into some kind of documentary so this movie is part self documentary (Blair witch project you know) and part real time action. Now, if the parts hinted at in the documentary part of the film actually got acted on in the real time action part - then it would actually, maybe, and quite possibly have been a decent horror story. But no, that doesn't really happen.Either because the actors and director doesn't have necessary talent to pull it through, or because the script is bad, or maybe a combination. Yelling in darkness isn't acting, so that doesn't count towards talent. And, unfortunately, that is most that happens in the real life action part of the film. It simply gets hideously boring.I think it would have been much, much better to concentrate on the documentary, fleshing out the story that way and make a Gothic, Lovecraftian end to it all rather than the poor action it contains. Alas it's much too late for that now ...

If you can deal with the shaky-cam nausea, it is still a complete waste of time. There really is no spoiler, it is a documentary of someone trying to build something from nothing. It is so void of any substance that it is even difficult to fill in ten lines - mandatory - to post a review. As another reviewer mentioned, no need to waste your time watching this. Even the lack of planning to drive out to the ranch is laughable. Prepare for bugs, but hunters on a ranch. Also I feel bad for the academics that were interviewed for this documentary. I wonder how they feel after seeing the end result with their academic integrity attached.