The Hem

Anyone who believe you can´t make a solid horror film on a extremely low budget just look at the 1999 found footage horror classic The Blair Witch Project. Made on a budget of less than 700.000 U.S. dollars it made over 240 million U.S. dollars at the box office worldwide. I remember clearly how hyped up this film was all over the news and on MTV. I even remember that they had a special program on Swedish channel Kanal 5 about the making of this film and that did not happen often on this specific TV channel. The Blair Witch Project proved that you can make a scary movie while only being able to use a limited budget. It all depends on how creative you are telling a effective story as well as capturing the atmosphere of a found footage horror film.  What made this film especially so scary was how they managed to build up tensions, and finding the right locations to match with the story. I will say that the acting is good as well from the cast, even though this film doesn´t have a lot of characters. If you have not seen The Blair Witch Project so far i recommend to check it out on digital or streaming. There are plenty of great found footage horror films to choose between and over the years i have seen plenty. One of the films i think you should check it because it was both well made and had a good story, is the 2011 found footage horror film known as Grave Encounters from directors The Vicious Brothers. This film was made on a extreme low budget of 120.000 U.S. dollars and made over 5 million U.S. dollars at the box office. If you do the numbers then you can clearly see this was a big box office hit. The story of Grave Encounters is basically surrounding a paranormal TV reality show called Grave Encounters, that only aired 5 episodes because of the whole crew mysteriously disappeared. The footage that we get to see actually have some really creepy moments inside the abandoned Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, where strange things begin to happen and we witness something extremely evil. Grave Encounters may not be one of the big classics in the genre of found footage horror films but i enjoyed this one because how well it is made considering the budget. The acting is pretty good as well and the haunting scenes works better than you might expect. Check this film out on streaming, VOD or physical media. I try to check out found footage horror releases every year, just to see if i may come across some title that might look interesting. That´s exactly what happened when i saw the poster of the horror film The Hem that i rented on VOD. Not knowing much more about this film i decided to give this film a chance. Is this one of the better found footage horror films this year or is The Hem unfortunately not a good option in this specific genre?

Dosumentary film maker Ann ( Savannah Rae Collins ) is working on a new documentary film with her crew to interview people about the abandoned old church known as Southside Church. It is said that it was in this church where a mysterious woman named Isabella Rose, who worked inside the church in the 1930's is still seen wearing one of her wedding dresses.

There is an interesting story to be told in The Hem regarding a very old church and in the last 16 minutes of the film there are some good horror scenes. But, even if this is just a 1 hour and 18 minutes long film there are a lot of scenes of the main characters that feel very drawn out. While they are investigating this old chuch there is not much happening. You hear noises, you see a wedding dressed woman sometimes, and this is all supposed to be scary. And that is one of my biggest issues with The Hem how much it misses the point with why found footage horror films can be good. They have not made a real effort to make this story scary or used this wedding dressed mysterious woman more effectively. Im not going to say that the cast is all terrible because i do think the female character Ann ( played by actress Savannah Rae Collins ) have a charming personality. The best acting performance though in this film comes from actor Judd Lormand ( who fans of TV series SEAL Team will recognize ) playing the police character Cameron. His scenes together with his partner Momty ( Georg Hardy from the legendary cult film Troll 2, a film you have to see ) towards the last 16 minutes of this film, their scenes going into the church armed is the most exciting part of the whole film. I understand that when you have a limited budget you can only do certain things, but that should also help you become more creative using whatever you have to build the film up more effectively. I do like the background story of the ghostly bride of Isabella, but you don´t see much of her at all until towards the end. If you are going to tell a story regarding a haunted location and base it around a specific individual, make it creepy, make it feel like an actual ghost story. The Hem could have been a great horror film if they would have made some changes and focused on the police insvestigation instead. Director Tyler Russel ( who both directed the independent full feature film Texas Cotton, and the short film by the same name ) clearly had some interesting ideas regarding The Hem. Too bad he could not find the right balance to make this film more effective. If you are a fan of this genre you might enjoy it, my recommendation would be check out Grave Encounters instead of this one.

Rating: DD