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| Images courtesy of Gravitas Ventures |
The third feature film Butterfly Kisses by the tragically
late writer-director Erik Kristopher Myers who also plays himself in it begins
initially as a meta-deconstruction of the found-footage thriller before
one-upping its influences in the process.
Much like The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity
which the film directly references replete with an Eduardo Sanchez cameo
debunking what we’re seeing, it begins with the unassuming filmmakers exploring
supernatural phenomena with their video cameras only to get engulfed in
paranormal terrors themselves. While the
found footage film rarely if ever requires any production values, just a video camera
and some sneaky low budget effects, somehow or another Butterfly Kisses deconstructs,
debunks and lastly unexpectedly reinvigorates the genre in ways not even I was prepared
for.
In the mockumentary film set circa May 2015, a wedding
videographer and film school dropout named Gavin York (Seth Adam Kallick)
discovers a box of tapes in the basement of his in-laws’ newly purchased
home. Outside the box are the words
imprinted ‘DON’T WATCH’, a warning York freely ignores as he decides to try and
make sense of his discovery. On the
tapes themselves are scenes for a documentary that began shooting in March 2004
by local film students Sophia Crane (Rachel Armiger) and her cameraman Feldman
(Reed DeLisle) who are trying to prove the existence of a local urban legend
nicknamed ‘Peeping Tom’.
The caveat is that
one can summon the entity by staring down Ilchester Tunnel at midnight for an
hour straight without blinking, the idea being once he is summoned every time
you blink he gets closer to you until he’s able to subdue and kill you. Skeptical of the legend, the filmmakers point
their camera down the tunnel which does in fact capture some kind of rising
shadow. However it becomes apparent
every time the camera cuts no matter where they are, the shadow appears to be
following them.
Through the framework of a supposed documentary being made
by Erik Kristopher Meyers with his trusty cameraman Kenny Johnson playing
himself while Seth Adam Kallick plays the fictional Gavin York, Butterfly
Kisses becomes a bit like a found footage Russian Doll constantly
transforming with another shape behind another shape and so on and so
forth. While much of it is intended to
deconstruct if not lampoon tropes or facets of the found footage film, it does
a sneaky thing by circling back around with more than a few unlikely surprises
up its sleeves.
Featuring one of the
very best found-footage scares since Lake Mungo, with key use of
minimalist sound design and a narrative that feels a bit like a creepypasta
being unraveled only to tangle back up again, Butterfly Kisses manages
to be a real freakout by getting you to let your guard down so you’re
unprepared when the shocks fire at you.
Another aspect that adds to the fear involves how much skepticism Gavin
and his tapes are met with by ‘paranormal experts’ and other filmmakers so you’re
not as engaged, leaving ample room for the film to sink its fangs into you.
Incidentally the film’s writer-director met with Eduardo
Sanchez years prior who helped pare down the mammoth over three-hour running
time to a more manageable 91 minutes.
While the epilogue of the piece doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,
likely created from deleted outtakes, it still leaves a stark chill through the
viewer. Winner of the Best Local Film
Award at GenreBlast and the Jury Award at Silver Scream Famous Monsters, the
film like The Blair Witch Project was so good at creating a viral
marketing myth that author Shelly Davies Wygant included a chapter about it in
her book Haunted Ellicott City as a real haunted location, something Erik
Kristopher Myers had to clear up later to the author’s surprise and
delight. Looking at it now in an endless
sea of do-it-yourself micro-budget mockumentaries, Butterfly Kisses is a
little meta found footage engine that could, a taut little scare fest that simultaneously
criticizes and embraces the subgenre and technique. Just try not to blink too much lest you find
the murderous Peeping Tom entity inches away from you.
--Andrew Kotwicki
