The Borderlands

There’s a certain snobbishness to found regarding found footage horror movies – unsurprising perhaps, considering the glut of uninspired Blair Witch wannabes that have occupied the market in recent years.  Director Elliot Goldner, however, has proved there are still frights to be had with the genre in his debut film, The Borderlands.

It possibly sounds like the beginning of a very bad joke – an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman walk into a haunted church – but that’s the premise at work here.  Gordon Kennedy, who British viewers will recognise from his roles in, well, everything really plays Deacon, a world wearied priest who has been sent by the Vatican to investigate a supposed miracle in a small country church.  He’s accompanied by fellow priest and Vatican investigator Mark (Aidan McArdle), and technical expert Gray (Robin Hill) who kits the team out with the headcams that capture their footage.

And for once there is at least a reason for team’s use of headcams – although the reasoning behind their entire base camp being fitted with cameras is perhaps a little muddier.  Still, the in-house cameras capture some distinctly creepy scenes early on in the film, such as the untimely church bells chiming in the dead of night and the agonised screams of a sheep that gets set alight by local teenagers, all of which sets the tone for the rest of the film.

The Borderlands does stick to some familiar horror movies tropes – characters going off alone into dark buildings, crucifixes crashing off walls, unwelcoming local villagers who may as well have burning pitchforks – but for the most part it works well here.  The scene where Deacon runs off to the church on in his own in the middle of the night might tick every cliché in the “Horror By Numbers” guide to film-making, but it does also provide some of the movie’s most scary moments.  And once again, this time round there is a genuine reason for it.  Deacon is a man who has a lot to prove after other investigations of his have had terrible consequences.  As he desperately tries to unravel exactly what is happening in the church you at least understand why he heads off into dark crevices on his own – even if you do still wonder if he’s ever watched a horror movie before.

If anything, what makes The Borderlands work so well compared to other found footage movies of recent years is its very MR James-style Britishness.  There are plenty of beautiful – and vaguely ominous – shots of the English countryside setting the mood, for a start.  And instead of nubile young Americans screaming down a camera, here we’re watching a couple of middle aged British men discussing fantastical paranormal happenings over a couple of pints in the local boozer, which seems to make the film’s events all the more believable.  It’s the central double act of Deacon and Gray that serves The Borderlands so well – a sort of Peep Show meets Paranormal Activity style relationship providing laughs amid the ghost hunting.

Notable mention has to go to Robin Hill as Gray, the agnostic techie who is more amazed and eager to believe in the supernatural goings on he witness than the two priests, particularly Mark, who is keen to find a scientific explanation for everything and not drag the church back into the “dark ages”.

Gordon Kennedy and Aidan McArdle both deliver strong performances too, although I did feel the film suffered a little from casting actors who aren’t exactly strangers to mainstream TV shows.  Surely it’s more believable to think you’re watching the found footage of a doomed investigation if you don’t recognise the men on screen from Sherlock or Mr Selfridge?  That’s a minor complaint though, and is possibly a reflection of me watching too much television as opposed to what a general movie going audience might think.

The Borderlands does somewhat lose its way in the final act, after the arrival of elderly priest Father Calvino (Patrick Godfrey) and the plot goes, for want of a better phrase, completely mad.  However the final scenes, which do owe more than a passing nod to The Blair Witch Project, are still thrillingly claustrophobic and deeply unsettling.