Found footage horror movies can be insufferable and often times dumb, but every few years or so a new film comes along and manages to do something slightly new within the genre that I like. Nothing groundbreaking or “genre reinventing”. Just fun and entertaining. At this point, a big part of making a watchable/somewhat believable found footage movie is finding a new-yet-logical explanation as to why someone keeps the camera rolling during the chaos. Today, everyone is always filming & posting themselves on all forms of social media so that part of the story is kind of easy to pull off. Someone is streaming and/or going live at any given moment. There’s also an even bigger uptick in youtube/Instagram/tik-tok prank videos which, staged or not, are usually mean-spirited & cruel. And they only get more & more cruel because each prankster wants to outdo and one-up the last person. Everyone wants to go viral. I’m kind of surprised more modern horror films haven’t capitalized on this subject matter instead of all the easter egg/symbol-heavy grief-porn horror films that currently plague the genre.
I know this sounds preachy on my part but folks are incredibly desensitized and have a warped sense of reality now more than ever. Likes, followers, and going viral are equal currency to some folks. Curry Barker’s Milk & Serial touches on all the mean-spirited online pranks and the desensitization of young people without being too preachy and finger wagging...
A Clockwork Orange / Milk & Serial
This is bound to be compared to the cinema of Quentin Tarantino due to it’s non-linear format, but this reminded me of a really good hour-long Mr Show sketch where the twist has an additional twist (the film centers around a prank inside of a prank that goes too far between a group of friends). Curry Barker is a young cinephile so the usual unavoidable suspects like; Tarantino and a base-level understanding of the violent side of Kubrick are all within the DNA of this movie but it would be unfair to stop there (it also shouldn't even need to be said but Quentin Tarantino didn't invent non-linear storytelling). There’s more to this movie than non-linear storytelling and visual homages to classic cinema. Young creatives aren’t always given the credit they deserve. Older folks like to sometimes underestimate the creativity of younger people because there’s this unwritten rule that anyone younger than you doesn’t know anything. But in my opinion, Milk & Serial is way more mature than you’d expect (especially considering it was made by someone in their early 20s). The music, the tone, the ambiance, everything. This is the kind of film that could be a gateway to stuff like early Haneke. Milk & Serial certainly has the same mean-spiritedness of something like Benny’s Video or Funny Games…
Benny's Video / Milk & Serial
After a recent re-watch I'm really starting to suspect Barker might be a fan of Haneke's late period stuff as well...
Benny's Video / Milk & Serial
A coincidental callback to possibly the most popular found-footage movie ever...
The Blair Witch Project / Milk & Serial
The final moments are also similar to the final moments of the pre-found footage classic; Man Bites Dog
Man Bites Dog / Milk & Serial
This is an hour-long youtube movie so I completely understand why it didn’t get the same hype as something like Cuckoo, Late Night With The Devil, Longlegs or even In A Violent Nature, but if you’re looking for an alternative to all the disappointing horror films from this year (sorry but almost everything that’s been hyped up this year was a letdown for me personally), Milk & Serial is easy to access.
