Phoenix Forgotten (2017)

(On Cable TV, May 2019) It’s almost redundant at this point to declare annoyance with yet another found footage horror movie—we’ve reached that saturation level years ago, and at this point you have to wonder why anyone would think it’s a good idea to adopt that style. Still, there’s a point in writer-director Justin Barber’s Phoenix Forgotten where it almost works for more than fifteen minutes: As a 2017 young woman directs her own documentary about the disappearance of her older UFO-obsessed brother back in 1997, there’s something almost compelling in the blend of HD footage with VHS-quality flashbacks, a growing mystery, unexpected clues and something that looks like a familiar but intriguing blend of UFO lore, military conspiracies and still-grieving parents. A few structural refinements are enough to keep up interested … and then the film nosedives. Hard. The final 20-minute sequence of the film is a very long and tedious Blair Witch Project-style wilderness video log with constant screaming, VHS glitches, characters growing mad and blurry stuff moving quickly on the screen in a mistaken attempt to make us think something is happening. The film ends where it began, with visual suggestions that the brother was indeed kidnapped by aliens. Nothing more. There’s no getting back to the present-day documentary, nor going beyond an obvious conclusion that was affirmed in the early moments of the film—which is after all a genre movie. While there are a few good moments here and there earlier in Phoenix Forgotten, the last act is a spectacular disappointment and the abrupt ending feels like cheating. This film certainly won’t change the minds of those who insist that found-footage movies are now in a creative dead-end.