Layers upon layers upon layers.
Writer-director Max Tzannes opens Pandora’s Box in Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project, and what emerges is a very entertaining hot mess.
As we’ll see, there are no other outcomes possible.
See if you can follow this. Chase Bradner (Brennan Keel Cook), a low-budget filmmaker, makes commercials for used furniture salesman Frank (Dean Cameron).
Chase and Frank decide to make a found footage horror film about Bigfoot that somehow attracts the attention of a French documentary crew that tags along for the ride.
Funding for the movie comes from a $20,000 loan from Frank’s dotty client Betsey (Suzanne Ford), under the condition that her favorite actor, Alan Rickman, will play the lead. This becomes especially difficult when they figure out the actor passed away eight years before.
Chase and Frank are under the impression that they have secured the talents of Daniel Radcliffe to act in their feature, but he turns out to be a chick named Danielle (Rachel Alig).
The location, a remote time-share cabin belonging to the parents of Chase’s girlfriend and producer Natalie (Erika Vetter) appears to be inhabited by a demon from Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead universe.
Add to that a conundrum straight out of Waiting For Guffman, when it proves too dangerous to have anyone running about in the meticulously made Bigfoot costume after the first actor is shot by a hunter.
It’s to his credit that Tzannes manages to keep most of his subplot balls in the air. We actually care about Natalie’s growing frustration with Chase and her budding romance with his best friend Mitchell (Chen Tang), despite the silly chaos erupting all over the place.
Natalie gets respect points by being the only adult on the set capable of seeing the big picture, but her boyfriend is too preoccupied with his vanity project to pay attention.
And it all builds to what is called the Grand Jubilee, a surprisingly downbeat WTF ending, that explains why no bodies were ever found.
Yep. You should watch it.
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