Cult Following – Film Review

Occult expert, Rob Regis (Garrett Marchbank), and hired cinematographer, Tyler Sternberg (Clem Darling), find themselves in grave danger when they investigate an evil cult for a documentary.

Do you remember back when found footage movies used to be literally everywhere? After the release and gargantuan success of 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, filmmakers from all around the world were seemingly trying to capture similar lighting in a bottle. There are plenty of found footage movies that are just straight-up terrible and it’s clear that they were made just to earn money. There was little effort put into making a good film.

However, there are some definite exceptions to the rule such as REC and a few of the Paranormal Activity movies. Even still though, there was once a time – not too long ago – when found footage horror movies ruled the market. It seemed like there was a good handful being released every single year and then for whatever reason, they just sort of… stopped coming out.

Now it’s not something that I’m terribly upset by because like I said above – a lot of them can be really terrible, especially if there is an overuse of shaky cam. But I will admit that I do miss watching them every once in a while, because the potential for greatness is quite high especially if the film has a really good premise, like Matt Hartley‘s Cult Following.

This is not a movie that was made on a Hollywood budget and you can tell as soon as the opening scene begins to roll, but that’s not really an issue at all. I actually prefer found footage horror movies that have super small budgets because then, it feels more genuine and authentic as opposed to extremely professional. After all, what we watch on-screen is supposed to be depicted as lost footage from a real individual’s video camera. Not some multi-million dollar Hollywood production.

The first thirty minutes or so of Cult Following are actually quite entertaining in some strange way. Nothing really happens throughout these thirty minutes but what makes it so much fun to watch is the comedic banter between actors Garrett Marchbank and Clem Darling. They clearly work well together on-screen and have plenty of memorable scenes together in the film.

But I will say that I wish this movie wasn’t as funny as it is early on. There were several instances where I felt as though I were watching a comedic found footage film instead of a horror-thriller as the concept promises.

Sadly though, after those thirty minutes of comedy, it became incredibly apparent to me that Cult Following wasn’t going to go anywhere exciting at all. It just feels like one pointless scene after the other and that’s essentially what it is. Even the sequences toward the end which are supposed to be creepy and thrilling, come across as rather mundane and weak.

I get that this is a low-budget movie and there is only so much a group of filmmakers can do to make a movie scary, but this film just wasn’t in any way. It wasn’t even creepy. For one, the lighting is extremely off-kilter and some scenes feature sunlight that gets right into the actor’s eyes.

There is no chilling atmosphere here to get us, the viewer, uneasy. It certainly feels like a home movie for the most part, but there should have been some attempt at making this “found footage” come across as creepy.

One of the reasons why The Blair Witch Project is as eerie as it is is because the film makes the wise decision to have small but unsettling things happen to the protagonists in every other scene, such as the iconic moment where they go to sleep in the forest only to wake up the next morning to find a bunch of stick-figure-like shapes hanging from the tree branches that were not there the previous day.

Not only is that moment deeply troubling for the characters – now they feel extremely unsafe knowing that somebody or something was messing around near the area where they slept – but we as the audience are deeply troubled because we know that things are slowly but surely starting to get creepy.

There are no moments like that in Cult Following. There are just an endless series of scenes that feel too much like boring conversations instead of scenes that continually build up to scary moments later on.

Another amazing thing that The Blair Witch Project did was including a haunting opening title card that reads:

“In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.”

As soon as you read that opening text, chills start to spread throughout your body. It has a genuinely uncomfortable feel to it that makes you wonder “Did this actually happen?”. Of course, we know that it’s a work of fiction, but in that first scene, your brain does wonder a bit.

For some reason, Cult Following makes the strange choice to open with a 1980s-style intro complete with disco-style music and neon lights. The movie doesn’t necessarily revolve around that time period either, so why they decided to use that as their opening sequence is a complete mystery to me. It doesn’t set the tone for the rest of the movie to come. It’s honestly rather jarring to see because it’s supposed to be the opening to a found-footage horror flick but it feels like the opening to an 80’s coming-of-age film instead.

It’s certainly an admirable effort and I’m curious to see what film Matt Hartley decides to make next. Let’s just hope he finds his footing soon because I know that with the right script, he could make a genuinely good movie.