Prediction

After seeing the trailer, here is my prediction:

The first twenty minutes of EVIDENCE will show nothing but boring, unlikable characters arriving in the woods, setting up camp, and walking around aimlessly while spouting meaningless dialog that's supposed to sound "real." We'll learn that for some unlikely reason a documentary is being filmed about one of the boring, unlikable characters, thus allowing the entire movie to take place in the now obligatory "found footage" style that's all the rage these days. Somewhere along the line, a redneck character will be introduced. This redneck character will ominously warn the boring, unlikable characters of some mysterious threat lurking in the woods.

Then, at the twenty minute mark (if we're very lucky), the boring, unlikable characters will see something blurry walk past their video camera. This will be followed by another twenty minutes in which these boring, unlikable characters argue with each other about what they saw and what they should do next. Lots of annoying shouting will take place as the actors improvise their lines, thus padding out the running time so that the film can qualify as feature length and not the short film which it so desperately should have been.

Then, at the forty minute mark, these boring, unlikable characters will hear "creepy" noises in the night. This will cause them to argue and swear at each other even more loudly and annoyingly than they did before. To no one's surprise, one of them will mysteriously vanish off screen. The others will argue endlessly about where their missing friend went. This will continue for much too long, padding the film's running time even more. Of course, at some point the audience will wonder why one of these boring, unlikable characters is still filming the documentary. A dumb explanation will be given.

Finally, somewhere around minute 69 (of what will probably be a 79 minute film - minus 5 minutes of extended credits), a guy in a gorilla suit will attack the remaining boring, unlikable characters and chase them into an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere. The boring, unlikable characters will run and scream while we occasionally see a few blurry shots of a pair of furry hands dragging them away into the dark. This will all be accomplished with an extremely shaky camera which will allow the filmmakers to hide the fact that their monster is a guy in a monkey suit. Much of it will also be shot in the dark, thus obscuring the costumed creature even more. Then, when the last boring, unlikable character is dragged away, the video camera will fall on the ground and a furry foot will walk past it.

The end. Roll credits.

The funny thing is, two weeks after this movie arrives on DVD and VOD, another trailer for a brand new found-footage horror film will appear online. This new trailer will be virtually identical to the one for EVIDENCE, except the guy chasing the brand new boring, unlikable characters will now be wearing a bear suit, or an alien suit, or a robot suit, or some other type of monster suit. Most likely, it will be called something like DOCUMENT, or RESEARCH, or PROOF. And the same people who thought the trailer for EVIDENCE looked interesting will come here and say that the new found-footage trailer looks interesting as well. Lessons will not be learned.

This same thing will then be repeated over and over and over again for infinity.

It won't be a surprise when one of the filmmakers, or one of their friends, logs onto IMDB and responds to this post by telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about. They'll claim that the film is nothing like I'm describing it to be here. They'll base this on the fact that perhaps I'm wrong about the thing chasing the boring, unlikable characters through the woods. Perhaps it's not a man in a gorilla suit, but is actually a man wearing some other creature suit instead. Basically, they'll be splitting hairs. In the end, regardless of what the thing chasing the boring, unlikable characters through the woods turns out to be, the film will still amount to nothing more than 69 minutes of shaky-cam footage of boring, unlikable characters walking around the woods while yelling at each other, followed by approximately ten minutes of blurry "monster" action, ending in a sudden cut to black as the camera falls to the ground.

But of course, they could be totally right and I could be totally wrong and EVIDENCE could end up being a modern cinematic masterpiece of pure, primal terror unlike anything the horror genre has ever seen before.