Get Misplaced within the Inescapable Nightmare of ‘Puzzle Field’ [Found Frights]

December 5, 2024

1

Welcome to Discovered Frights, a month-to-month column through which Ari Drew highlights new, underrated, and underseen discovered footage motion pictures for these of us who can’t get sufficient of this horror subgenre that simply received’t die.

One factor that I’ve at all times beloved about following and overlaying unbiased horror movies is the prospect of discovering tasks and expertise that make me really feel excited concerning the style another time. Regardless of its status over time as a low-effort gateway to style filmmaking, discovered footage movies and people in its household of subgenres (see: screenlife, mockumentary) have typically been in a position to spark that distinctive sense of giddiness in me when executed with care. At their greatest, they’re a powerful showcase of ingenuity, novel filmmaking approaches, and impassioned collaboration–typically born of necessity as a result of restricted budgets most of those tasks need to work with all through manufacturing. At their worst, properly… the poor status the subgenre has garnered amongst horror followers can really feel greater than validated.

Nonetheless, for all the criticisms over time, a good portion of my favourite horror movies are discovered footage tasks that seize real-time terror in visceral and genuine methods. For sure, these are the kinds of tasks I hope to spotlight in Discovered Frights every month. With every entry, I hope you’ll take the journey with me to discover a mission (or two) that represents a few of the most promising expertise in discovered footage and associated subgenres–at occasions additionally that includes behind-the-scenes tidbits from the filmmakers themselves. When you could not uncover your subsequent favourite horror flick each time, it’s my hope that readers will stroll away with a greater understanding of why discovered footage nonetheless speaks to so many horror followers and is a subgenre worthy of consideration and respect.

Now that every one that’s out of the way in which, I’d prefer to current the primary movie on this inaugural Discovered Frights entry: Jack Dignan’s Puzzle Field.

Launched earlier this yr on digital platforms through style label Welcome Villain Movies, Puzzle Field follows struggling addict Kait (Kaitlyn Boyé) and her sister Olivia (Laneikka Denne) as they gap up in a distant cabin with hopes of getting Kait via DIY drug detox and rehabilitation. Wanting to maintain Kait accountable and their dad and mom within the know on the method, Olivia decides to doc the expertise in all of its messiness. Sadly for Kait and Olivia, rehabilitation proves to be the least of their struggles as they quickly notice that the format of the mysterious home is shifting, trapping the ladies in a disorienting (you guessed it!) puzzle field. Throw a frantic, bloody girl (Cassandre Girard) into the combo and also you’ve acquired the proper recipe for a liminal horror nightmare.

In recent times, Welcome Villain Movies has exhibited a promising curiosity in discovered footage, having launched two different noteworthy subgenre entries not too long ago with Thoughts Physique Spirit (2024) and Invoking Yell (2024). Puzzle Field settles in properly into the Welcome Villain catalog, because it offers notable consideration to the connection between its lead characters amidst the horrors, a top quality that the aforementioned movies additionally arguably share. Australian director Dignan, who additionally wrote and edited the movie, put nice care into casting his leads, noting that he deliberately wrote the function of Kait with Boyé in thoughts and sought out Denne for the function of Olivia after recalling her earlier audition for his first movie, After She Died. “We solely had actually one rehearsal day with the 2 of them collectively, and it wasn’t even a rehearsal day of practising strains from the script or something like that,” Dignan remembers. “We needed to search out these characters collectively. So we have been rehearsing these again story conditions and we have been doing improvisational video games and crafting the world of this movie with out ever practising the strains of dialogue on the web page.”

As is typical for a lot of discovered footage movies, the actresses have been additionally chargeable for filming a lot of the footage themselves, which might actually add an additional layer of stress to the filmmaking course of on a low-budget set. But Dignan had nothing however reward for Boyé and Denne, who’re additionally writers and administrators in their very own rights. “Thank God they’d nice chemistry,” he states. “They have been in a position to carry an additional dimension to what was on the web page and actually elevating it into one thing very pure and really particular.” Certainly, Boyé and Denne’s genuine sisterly rapport finally serves to underscore the themes of household strife, cycles of habit, and redemption that permeate the movie.

Although the movie’s de facto antagonist The Screaming Girl was initially written as a male character, Dignan realized that making the character a lady would extra successfully carry the themes of the movie collectively. This shift occurred solely every week and a half previous to capturing, main Dignan to position a final minute name to Girard, who beforehand performed a small function in After She Died. “She has a terrific physicality to her and a extremely terrifying demeanor,” Dignan states. “And I do know she is aware of scream very properly! She did a implausible job. She got here in on the eleventh hour and he or she saved our film. She’s so terrifying.”

Dignan additional mentioned drawing real-life inspirations in deciding upon the movie’s narrative construction. “[Addiction] is unquestionably one thing I’ve been round and I’ve seen, so it’s a narrative I needed to inform,” he states. “And on the identical time, I actually needed to lift consciousness, not solely simply [about] the consequences that drug habit has on the addict but in addition on the household round them and the individuals they dwell with and the individuals of their lives. I needed to inform this story of restoration and second possibilities and getting higher.” Dignan acknowledges the dichotomy right here provided that the subject material of Puzzle Field is by and enormous fairly bleak. “It’s a really darkish film […] however I believe there are glimmers of optimism in the direction of our third act. There’s an opportunity at redemption for everyone, and I believe that was an vital story that I actually needed to faucet into.”

The contained but ever-shifting setting of Puzzle Field makes for an more and more claustrophobic power that solely ramps up as Kait’s withdrawal worsens and the home grows extra labyrinthine. For sure, a eager eye for route and enhancing are essential to bringing a very disorienting imaginative and prescient like this to life, however Dignan was up for the problem, discovering inspiration from previous discovered footage greats like The Blair Witch Venture and the V/H/S sequence and more moderen experimental style fare like The Outwaters and Skinamarink. “I noticed this as a extremely good alternative to do one thing […] I may do on a funds and I may do in a extremely artistic method. Yeah, it excited me! I didn’t assume I’d ever do a discovered footage characteristic, however as soon as I had […] that picture in my head of the particular person coated in blood working in the direction of the digicam, I used to be like ‘OK, I actually need to make this film now. I can’t assume a bout the rest till I get this film completed and out into the world.’”

Dignan isn’t fairly completed with the world of Puzzle Field, having simply wrapped post-production on a prequel brief entitled Puzzle Field: The Glitch, which can be included on the movie’s bodily launch and as a part of an anthology movie that has but to be introduced. He’ll then shift gears to work on his follow-up to Puzzle Field, described as “a physique horror rom-com [that’s] quite a lot of enjoyable.” Coloration us intrigued!

Puzzle Field is presently obtainable to hire or buy on digital platforms.