THE WICKER MAN meets THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT? Really?

I am not a fan of movie teaser articles that use the word “meets” in this way but the trailer for this new film APOCALYPTIC does seem to justify the headline from movie pilot.com that has just come over the transom today…

It’s from Australia, and very low budget (less than $10,000, which is CRAZY!), and in one of my favorite (if beleaguered, these days) categories of horror, the found footage genre. Though it wasn’t the first film to use the found footage conceit, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (shot for under $50K) was of course the first film to be referred to widely with this term. It uses the premise of documentary-style footage to lend verisimilitude and authenticity to a fictional story, and can often be a very effective device for low budget filmmakers who use it in creative and innovative ways. In some cases, the story is about a group of filmmakers looking for something unusual (like in BLAIR WITCH or one of my favorite movies of the last few years, the Norwegian film TROLLHUNTER) who get more than they bargained for.

That’s the story here, too: a film crew goes looking for an unusual doomsday cult that lives in the forest (this must be prompting the WICKER MAN comparisons). The initial stills that have been released look intriguing: I’ll sure have my eye out for this one! Check out the trailer.