REVIEW: PAYNE'S BRANCH

First-time feature filmmaker Jake Casey has made a nice little found footage horror-ish film with PAYNE'S BRANCH. The reason that I say "horror-ish" is well... you'll see.

The story opens up with college students Jake (Jake Casey) and Thomas (Thomas Tarter) setting up peanut-butter jar "bear traps" and trail cams in three locations in order to record black bears in their habitat for a final capstone project.

The first two setups go fine, but the third location is full of bones, a hell of a lot of bones. Cue up the creepiness! After the initial setup, the rest of the film essentially follows just the two of them (apart from one interaction with a professor) trying and mostly failing to capture a bear on camera.

This necessitates a few trips back out to their trap locations, where they find...more bones, and the creepiness level slowly increases. However...

We have a lot of buildup (And I mean a lot) for not a ton of payoff. Now I will say this, the payoff, when it does happen, is pretty damn effective, if not that drawn out.

The creepy parts of the film are few and far between, but when they are in there, they are done well. I just wish that there was a little more. Both of the actors are likeable, slightly goofy young college students, and it's not a chore to spend 90 minutes hanging out with them. Also for a first time presumably zero-budget found footage feature film, picture and sound are surprisingly good. Not high cinema by any stretch, but perfectly serviceable.

That's why I say this is "horror-ish" because for the most part, it feels like a rather mundane found-footage documentary where we follow these guys around as they work on this project and not a lot happens. But that kind of lends a stronger air of reality to it in a way, because well, real life is pretty mundane for the most part, isn't it? Then kind of frustratingly we'll get a tease of some scares, which are actually pretty effective, but they don't really turn into full-blown horror, which is sort of a letdown.

A little tighter editing and some more serious scares happening in the film would have helped out immensely, but all in all, this is a pretty solid first effort.