My Netflix queue is large to the point of absurdity. Any movie that might interest me, especially horror, indie, and genre fare gets put on it. Its so large that when I have time to watch something, I dont have time to look over the whole list and pick something logically. Usually, that means I randomly scan and watch the first horror movie that I find. Tonight, that movie was called Mr. Jones (2013). Id see the trailer and thought it looked interesting but, at the time, it wasnt available on streaming, so I forgot about it until it popped up on there last week or the one before. The movie is about a couple who pull a Thoreau and move off into the wilderness so the man can work on a nature documentary. While there, they stumble upon some weird scarecrow-like sculptures which the lady recognizes as the work of the reclusive artist dubbed Mr. Jones. When they decide to make a documentary and coffee table art book about him instead, all of their troubles start. The movie is filmed in a mixed documentary/found footage style and, while I dont know if its exactly what the director intended, it had a modern Lovecraft feel to it. The backstory has some really interesting ideas (of which Id like to have seen more). Most of the criticism of the movie is about the ending, which features weird jumps, static, and double exposures. Usually this kind of stuff bothers me but here I felt it made sense in the context of the film more than it ever annoyed me. Also, despite claims that the ending is hard to follow, I had no problem discerning what was happening. I think its pretty well laid out in the closing narration and scenes but still a wee bit open to the viewers own interpretation as to the details of said ending. Currently the movie has a 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Im glad I didnt know that before I watched it because it might have caused me to miss this intense little sleeper that soundly captured my attention and left me wanting more (even though more is entirely unnecessary). If you like subtle horror, give it a chance. It really surprised me and Id say its one of my favorite horrors Ive seen this year.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 05:33:31 +0000
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