Joe and Tess Smalley

(In French, On Cable TV, December 2021) Few things are more disappointing than wasted potential, but it’s in the nature of low-budget filmmaking to have ambitions that are never fulfilled. There’s a lot of promise in the set-up of Episode 50 — two rival teams of reality-TV shows (one skeptical, the other more religious) coming together for a case that goes beyond what they usually undertake. It’s not necessarily anything new, but it starts out as being more than the usual found-footage stuff. Unfortunately, the usual found-footage stuff is what the film degenerates into: The initially promising clashes of sensibilities between the crews end up coming down to various people possessed by demons, and others screaming their heads off. (You don’t win any prizes for guessing that the skeptics are quickly and thoroughly convinced of the supernatural.)  Nearly everything intriguing about Episode 50’s first few minutes is eventually dismantled and replaced by a generic low-budget found-footage approach (with a few dull staged interviews) that causes more headaches than suspense. By the end, we’re almost openly cheering for the demons, as their killing the rest of the characters hastens the end of the film. I’m sure someone will eventually make something good with the best elements of Episode 50… but writers-directors Joe and Tess Smalley didn’t succeed at it.