The Atticus Institute - Apparently they still had ‘found footage’ back in the seventies

‘The Atticus Institute’ is a documentary.  Only it isn’t.  It’s one of those films that is shot like one, yet scripted – I think they call them a ‘mockumentary.’ I’ve seen the genre before and they can be pretty entertaining; normally they’re quite funny and this one is supposed to be scary.  It’s about the first ‘government sponsored’ institute which studies the paranormal.  The story is about the facility’s first ‘genuine’ patient with paranormal abilities.

Therefore you get a load of ‘talking head’ interviews shoved in every few scenes.  It’s set in the seventies, so all the scenes ‘recorded’ back then are nice and grainy, while the ‘interviews’ are supposed to be filmed with modern cameras, therefore being clearer in picture quality.  Yes, both sorts are well-filmed.  The overall effect is certainly one of watching a documentary on past times.  Only the interviews totally take you out of what little scary mood has been created (and there’s not much of that to begin with).  Whoever’s being interviewed basically tells you a bit about what happened back in the past and then we see what they’ve already said in grainy ‘stock’ footage.

So, everything that’s going to happen is first told to us by an interviewee.  And you can probably guess what’s going to happen anyway.  Once the institute gets its first ‘real’ person with psychic abilities then you know it’s going to go wrong for them.  And it does.  Only it doesn’t really crank up the mood to anything because it’s being told to us in retrospect and you sort of already know what’s happened because it’s all taken place already (that’s assuming you couldn’t guess what happened anyway).

And, what few scares are in here aren’t that scary.  The lynchpin of any ‘found footage’ film is that it doesn’t have much of a budget.  And it shows here.  Basically, if you like horror films, there are better.  And, if you like ‘found footage’ films then you’ll probably have seen better also.

Plus there’s a British actress who plays one of the doctors who completely overacts every time she’s interviewed.  She wound me up.

3/10 Jabba the Hutt wipes himself down with this film