I can’t say I felt much for Olatunde Osunsanmi’s 2009 sci-fi docu-drama The Fourth Kind, but the multi-textural format he used to tell the story was intriguing enough to keep Osunsanmi on my radar, and I’m more intrigued by his next film, the semi-found-footage thriller Evidence, though I fear it may fall into similar narrative trappings. The above trailer, via Dread Central, is different from what I was expecting, and it’s both a blessing and a curse.
For the film, Stephen Moyer (True Blood) and Radha Mitchell (Red Widow) play two detectives tasked with figuring out the who, the how, and possibly the why behind a mass killer’s massacre near a bus crash in the desert. Beyond all the physical evidence, they’re left with a bunch of different recording devices found at the scene; cell phones and things like that. So it appears as if the story the movie wants to tell is being told via characters’ points-of-view, which is interesting, but then we’re left with the detectives sitting in a room watching movies as the alternative? Sure the accident and immediate investigation will take place in different places, but once the videos come into play, it looks like a lot of computer watching.
I do like the stylized stilled opening to the trailer, and the pacing is jolting and creates the kind of tension that might bring Evidence to audiences outside the homeliest demographic. My all-around optimism for this film isn’t so naïve; I understand this won’t be a genre classic. But I watched another found footage movie called Evidence released last year, and that was complete garbage, so I have to assume Osunsanmi can bring something more interesting to the sand-and-blood-covered table.
It doesn’t help that the film isn’t getting a theatrical release, but you can find it on Blu-ray and DVD this summer on August 20th. Check out a few stills from the film below.
