the asiancrush app hates me and puts an unhideable progress bar on the pause screen (yes, back button exits the movie instead of hiding the bar), but there isn't much impressive here visually anyway. the camera focus is myopic and shallow, plausibly amateur mistake but brilliant even if uncalculated
it's found footage forest horror. I don't know, maybe the Blair Witch Project left too strong of a mark on me, but my favorite subgenre of FF is FF in a forest. even if you don't hit TBWP levels, I'm still so happy to see it. I love any movie in this niche and needed to add this to the list
A great example is the Fake Documentary Q episode "Bivuaoc"
Anyway, Amanuda isn't quite there yet. But it's close in a way that's really exciting to see from something you and your friends could have done in a couple of days at a nearby state park. It seemingly does adhere to the main rule of FF: the camera is physically and plausibly present in the scene.
It has to look like something from a camera just some guy could be lugging around. Lighting is motivated. The guy carrying the camera is present in the scene. Lighting in general doesn't look thoughtful unless you're Doing Something Cool. Plausible levels of actual dust/lint on the lens at times.
Then there's "how/why are we able to see this" but once you close that loop you can get away with a lot and keep me happy. Amanuda checked that box, and did some fun stuff that makes me hopeful. The director homages / rips off some cool stuff from TBWP and others that, even if not great, shows taste
it falls apart frequently, I'm not joking when I say the budget is a case of beer for some friends and a ram upgrade to keep davinci resolve happy, but it also has brief moments of clarity where it actually nails it, fleetingly. I don't say all this to rag on the director, quit the opposite
going to be hunting down his latest work, there's actually a lot of cool stuff in Amanuda that I want to see how he builds on. could just make this tier output forever and I'll still watch it, but there's a glimmer of hope this becomes a name we really start talking more about in 5-10 years
feels good to do this to a movie with 50 reviews. encourages others to say "mids are good, actually"
real good suboptimal crunchy leaf woods in Tinsman Road
