Found Footage February Day 10 The House on Mansfield Street!!!

Day 10

The House on Mansfield Street

Well this was a bit of a discovery, and impromptu pick. I had another film in mind but that just…the less said the better.

Actually that’s not fair, it’s just true. The film was removed from streaming so, had to find an alternative choice. This one popped up and it intrigued me because it seemed oddly familiar. I watched the trailer and it looked even MORE familiar, I knew I’d not seen it though and for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out.

And yes I was sober.

Eventually I did discover the reason for this and that lead me down a rabbit hole. I had apparently watched one bored night before deciding to do this months theme, the latest film in what apparently is a 4 film series which began with this one.

Now that was surprising, but I can’t really say in a pleasant way. The film I watched was, well. It was different. But it wasn’t terrible just very. Different, but I gave it points for embracing a different form of found footage in that it was using like an Instagram type format of live viewing mixed in with face time calls. Which was interesting. So I felt yeah why not. Lets dig into this one and see what we get.

Like usual I try to stay away from films that are part of a series just because that’s a horse of a different color, and with found footage it just feels like it makes it something else entirely.

It also feels like cheating. Like I could’ve filled this whole month up with the Paranormal shittivity films and the Blackwell Ghost series alone, and all we’d have is me bitching for days on end about what a huge shit sandwich of wasted potential and a lot of build up for a lackluster pay off.

I still want to talk about those films, just. Not really willingly.

So anyway here we are, thanks to streaming rights ending and I am actually curious to see where this film takes us. With that said lets grab out paranormal investigation gear and in the words of my ex, see if we get something worth talking about.

The Film

So thankfully we are given the impression or films star is likely missing and our in the spirit realm, that’s horrible to say but not in the context of horror films thankfully. Our setup is that tried and true stomping ground of someone, Nick Greene, having turned home video footage into a documentary based off paranormal events he captured in his new home. He of course never finished it which only bodes well for our story.

Nick is moving up in this world, he has a new home, a new job, and a life full of horrible events just waiting to flood into his life. He seems alright, pretty lively guy and I’m happy for him. He’s got a nice looking house, A thin Mac in the corner which instantly reminds me of my Mac from the art institute and what a beautiful pain in the ass that was.

It really is a nice place though, I’m jealous, then again a lot of places in Europe people can live in make our apartments look sad. Then again they also live in closet sized rooms. ANYWAY.

He’s getting settled in, showing off his little cottage and just as he’s showing us his gopro setup which I still question from people. We are meeting one of his neighbors. Which is, rather odd. Her name is Emma, and I am going to assume this is….a British thing, or a flirty flirty thing, I’ve been out of the flirting loop for a long time so I can’t say. But she pops by to introduce herself and comes right into his home. I’m not saying she’s suspicious, but I am saying she could be responsible for horrible events, or she’s just trying to get her dick game on.

She’s all smiles but a little reserved and not entirely, I don’t know. Just sus man. Pluss she had a special gift for him. A house warming gift that she said her sister made. It’s a special stitched white bag with odd stitched red symbols. Filled with herbs or something. He invites her over another evening for drinks, she gladly excepts and we also discover interestingly enough. They both work at the same building. They both work in a university and will be seeing each other a lot it seems. So good on them I guess, but I still don’t trust her ass.

I do however have to say either Nick is a cool guy as we first thought, or a dick with a terrible flirting game.

We say this because as he shows the camera what she gave him and explains how it’s supposed to be hung by the front door, that he will keep it there until Emma comes for drinks, then after she leaves he’ll toss it int the trash.

That’s really a dick move bro.

Unless that bag is like a demon welcoming gift or a cursed item, then by all means burn it in fire and hold a blessing over it.

But less than ten minutes in and we are getting our first paranormal happenings! I like it, lets keep things going, right off the bat.

The moment he hangs the pouch, he hears what sounds like foot steps above him. So he goes upstairs to investigate, only to discover that his freshly made bed, is now unmade and formed into the shape of a body. Which is deeply concerning.

But he takes it like a champ, with a chuckle worthy response of “Pretty sure I, made my bed this morning”

Dude, even if you made the bed, I don’t think you sleep with both pillows in the middle of the bed wrapped in a comforter but. Each their own I suppose.

So do the noises stop in the bedroom? Hell no. He hears skittering from the attic space and follows the noise to the bathroom. Assuming they have rats which is upsetting to anyone knowing you’d have to deal with that after just getting moved in and trying to settle. He opens up the small panel leading to the attic space and, Out from the attic falls a very ugly looking, very old and incredibly stinky thing. Not a dead animal thankfully. Or a severed hand. As it turns out, what dropped out of the attic, was the exact same charm that Emma dropped off for him and he hung on his door. Only this one looks like it’s been dragged through swamp water and used as Bigfoots ass cloth.

Don’t act like you don’t know what I mean either. You grew up with a shower and that shower had a small raggedy looking wash cloth. You KNEW what that was for.

Also you learned never to use them or mix up the coochy cloth and ass cloth.

ANYWAY

He says the charm bag smells like musty old ass and tosses it outside. Which he mentions on camera he’s glad he got rid of it as the noises he heard suddenly stopped once he got rid of it. Normally that would be a red flag and definite cause to get your ass the hell out of there, but this man is as cool as a cucumber and he’s made peace with his ghost, demons, possible attic girlfriend.

But is the noise gone for good? Of course not, then we’d have no movie. Just a boring ass documentary, unless he brought it back into the house. Which honestly would make for a fun movie if you think about it.

So the poor guy still hears noises, but that’s amazingly the least of his problems. As he checks his mail and goes through Pornhub. He notices an odd error coded email and decides to open it. Normally this is something we all avoid as you pretty much are guaranteeing yourself that it’s a virus you just opened and infected your system with. But he is behind 7 proxies and does not care.

What he finds in this odd email, is an even odder unexplained attachment. A video clip. Of what exactly? Of himself. Being videotaped arriving outside his apartment. It’s a short clip, but enough to rightfully freak out anyone.

He calls up a buddy of his, explaining what happened, and his friend offers nothing what so ever except maybe it’s a girl wanting to date him and he should just let her in and hope for the best. That’s not true but I really think it wasn’t far from his mind.

But that’s not all!

This film is actually ramping up spooky moments in a pretty funny way, and exciting at the same time.

On top of the odd video clip emails, and hearing foot steps above him, and made beds beng suddenly unmade, he hears knocking at his front door in the early morning. He goes downstairs to answer the door, only to find not only is someone not there. But really creepily, there are bare foot prints outside, on his snow covered front yard.

Perfectly formed foot prints that don’t retreat, and stop right at his front door. It’s a simple effective scare and I love it. It’s also just funny as hell to me because. Seeing this. He sums it up as, someone ‘taking the piss’, meaning fucking with him. How someone can knock on his door repeatedly until he got there, and walk backward in the snow matching their bare footprints, I don’t know. But give that person a gold star for talent moving that fast.

Well, he is able to admit that his house might be a little haunted.

So he’s going to begin editing this footage from all his cameras and cellphone, to create a documentary. This very documentary.

Now I mentioned earlier, something I can’t really understand about these people, not Europeans, but well, in these movies, and in real life. There are people who set up cameras to record their daily life. Not especially for security, or any such thing. But as part of an active vlog. Most commonly you see this with cam girls. Who make a living off of views and tips, so they fill their home with cameras, and sometimes even pair up with companies and move into cam girl homes. Yes it can get porny, and yes its stupid as hell. But people be doin this shit, and somehow making money. Honestly having a bunch of cameras, especially GoPro’s around the house is. A lot of work. But he’s doing it, he’s also using motion detection add on mounts for his cameras and it makes sense in the film yeah. But again the realization people will fill their place with this expensive crap, so we can watch them sleep, and eat, and shower, and rub their balls for a sniff test. It’s just. It’s too much man. Too much.

Speaking of too much. We need some more scares, and the film is going to give us laughs, and call it scares. Seriously I don’t know how this was called from the trailer something that made someone shit themselves but. They apparently have some serious health issues to look into, because this shit we’re about to see was hilarious more than anything.

As our cool cucumber sleeps peacefully in his my little pony sheets. His door suddenly opens, and the camera begins going all static. Which means its go time for ghost and demons.

Which we get a glimpse of, three glimpses. And its goddamn funny.

Taking your shoes off, and walking barefoot in the snow to your front door, walking inside, and then having a friend knock on the wall to make it seem like someones at the door and showing people the odd bare foot prints? That’s a silly cheaply done but can be effective scare. They did that and it was fine. But then having a scene to show us the demon or whatever…lordy.

So the clips we see of the figure. Is quite literally a skinny man, wearing a white hoody, with a featureless face mask on. It’s not shit yourself scary. It’s fucking hilarious. Except…

And this is a strong, reaching except.

He believes he could be being filmed or watched by someone, and the whole possible haunting thing. So the idea of a video you setup, catching a very visible figure in your home, that appears and disappears. It’s creepy, he might excuse it as a glitchy camera, and he might invest in new locks, because obviously this could mean someone actually DID break into your home, or HAD been and you caught it.

That’s as far reaching as I can get to try and excuse the very cheap scare. I mean even I’ve done similar with recreating ghost photography by doing long exposures on a timer where I’d stand in one spot wearing a coat, then slowly move out of frame. It creates the illusion of a blurred shape in motion.

This was just a dude in a hoody wearing a mask….

Well no one claimed it had a high budget, but I still accept that over the shit I saw in goddamn Exhibit X. Seriously you’ve no idea, nor should you ever by watching it. Ever.

So his nights obviously are becoming much more sleepless, and activity seems to be ramping up more and more. He’s still hearing sounds, he’s still experiencing doors opening and items being moved. He’s also got clips of himself being recorded found on his computer so. This is a lot for someone to deal with. But he’s still cool as a cucumber in the crisper.

But he could use a bit of relaxation, I think we all could. So he takes a much needed walk out in the park, and who should he run into but dear Emma!

Somehow he doesn’t grab her shoulders and start shaking her violently shouting “WHAT DID YOU BRING INTO MY HOME!!”, instead he’s very pleased to see her and the two catch up with one another. He mentions that drink he brought up the first day and she decides sure why not, let’s get drunk.

She also decides to again add to her questioning presence. As she tells him she’ll come over for drinks, hang out, and. She’s going to bring her Tarot cards over. For fun.

Tarot cards for fun.

In High School, our last day of school my Sophomore year. I decided to bring a bunch of stuff, I forgot I had my tarot cards with me, because I was sketching the art off some of them. A classmate saw them and got excited asking if I knew how to use them, I told her I did and she asked immediately to do a reading because that sounded cool. Before I could say sure why not and give a reading to a girl who’d flat out mentioned trying to talk with me more. Our teacher cockblocked me and immediately when hearing the word Tarot, told me to put those away and flat out said “I will not allow those in here, ever.” Well that left an impression, and ruined a possible cool hookup.

Don’t worry we eventually did get to chat and hang out on our own and it was, something….any way.

He now has drinks and tarot to look forward to, so he is a happy boy! That is until his phone vibrates alerting him that there is ‘motion detected’ inside his home. So he switches to the camera feed and we see the camera in the corner of his loving room and kitchen move toward a door, and. We see a large figure standing in a power stance. It’s a very well defined figure by the door and all we see is their shadow being cast. It rightfully freaks him out FINALLY, and the man is rushing home to confront this shape. Which of course vanishes like a fart in the bath tub.

But it still absolutely freaks him right the hell out, thankfully we have signs he’s human after all.

He even goes as far as to call the lady who showed him the cottage and ask to make sure who has keys to his home, aside himself and the landlord. She assures him only the two of them have those keys, and the landlord is also, out of the country. So that eliminates the most likely suspect from list of people screwing with him. I still believe Emma could be involved, but we will see if he survives the drinks and tarot.

All I know for sure. Is we got 20 minutes left and I’m actually curious to see how this goes as I have no idea.

So Emma shows up, all smiles and curious to have herself a look about his apartment, while subtly letting out silent farts angled just right to ensure her scent is coating corners of his home. He decides to get the drinks, and she readies up the tarot cards. Let the fun begin.

Everything is setup. Candles are lit, lights are dimmed, wine is poured and he is shoving a camera in her face. It’s either going to be a charmingly fun drink night, or a really awkwardly shot porno.

Nick shuffles the tarot and Emma begins laying them out to tell him his past, present and future events.

As far as the past goes, it simply reads as change. That something happened that put him on the path he is set currently, like his new career and house.  As for his present? It appears he is going to come into his own, and use his talents. He will do something that will be seen by many people, however he will not be a part of it. That’s not worrying or anything.

But what of his future?

Well the cards she lays out would look incredibly worrying, but not especially. We have the fool, the tower, the devil, the 10 of swords and death.

DEATH!!

Which rarely means actual death, just means more like something sudden happens, or an end of other things, not your life.

Well he is rather turned off by that, naturally, and when he informs Emma that he is not cool with this, it’s not all that fun for him and rather scares him. This dries her up immediately, she finishes her drink and decides it’s late, she should be getting home, and unceremoniously departs, with the checkbox marked off in her mind of “We tried.”

Which she did try, and since he’s not into tarot well, too bad. However we start getting the funky freaky camera static all the while and it’s again a little curious and I feel a bit of a missed opportunity, unless something is coming we aren’t aware of. But if Emma is a spiritual person and feels that connection. Wouldn’t she had sensed this presence?  A change in the setting? Something, anything?!

Nope, all she senses is that she shaved her legs for nothing, and at least she enjoyed his grocery store wine.

I kinda get the feeling something is up. She still seems sus to me but for now she’s gone and we need an ending here pal, because we only got 9 minutes left!

But seriously she seems pretty sus.

Well that night as darling Nick sleeps the sleep of peaceful cucumbers, he is once again awoken. There is running stomping and whistling going on in his house. He’s out of bed and rightfully ticked off, well no. the guy is just too nice for that. He is rather freaked out at least so we got that going for us.

So freaked out Nick makes his way down the stairs and examines his cottage, only to discover, really creepily though again low rent scares. A shadow of someone pacing behind a closed door, whistling. You very obviously can hear it’s a person. They suddenly rattle and shake the door and Nick decides he is now a cucumber of action. He throws open the door, rushes into the room and. There’s nothing.

I will note that he charged in one specific direction, giving whoever was in the room a chance to escape from behind him. Before taking a moment to pan and scan around the room with the amazed “There’s nobody in here.”

I’m not complaining, just noting how they did the scares and how it can still work for you in a low low budget sense.

But still not buying hoodie demon man.

No.

Well he is right and properly freaked out and finally, oddly. Decides to do something. Which really makes….I mean it makes sense? But how he concluded to get to this point, isn’t entirely that clear. But you could see them eventually reaching this point.

Nick has decided to go outside and retrieve from the trash, the original bagged door charm he tossed out, which looked like the one Emma gave him. He is going to open both of these to satisfy himself by looking at both their contents.

What does he find?

It would appear a stock of herb, I imagined sage but eh. Some wrapped cloth and, in both pouches. Two parts of a hand drawn painting. Which just so happens to be of the devil, with a knife, and a man bleeding out his stomach.

Well isn’t that special.

SO Emma was sus after all! She is the demon summoner! Or girl living in his attic. SHE is the one who brought in the hoodie demon. Maybe she IS the hoodie demon! I mean it all checks out. Girls constantly, every time you date them. They immediately claim your hoodie and use it in some odd girls only ritual that you do NOT want to know about but WILL suffer the consequences of if you upset them, and it all ties into why so many of them burn their ex boyfriends belongings in ritual. I am not being cruel to women, I am just saying I grew up with this shit and you can’t deny that women, that YOU have yourself not claimed an article of your partners clothing as your own and there for likely performed some kind of weird ass ritual, or just cleaned it because you are super nice and thankful they let you use it but whatever!

The point is, Emma is a demon bitch

Nick immediately goes over to visit her home, but she is not there. She might not even LIVE there, so next he contacts the university, to try and see if they have her number or a way to contact her.

Only to discover, yup. You guessed it. They’ve never heard of her!

Attic girlfriend. Calling it right now.

So our cucumber boy, should be contacting the police about now. But no. He’s still too cool for school.

Instead he decides to make his bed.

This man…maybe British people are just built different. Maybe Monty Python is just really spot on about how nonchalant they really are.

Well he makes his bed and sure enough. We got foot steps again. He runs upstairs and, the scariest shit your pants thing ever has happened. His bed is unmade!

Sweet horror of fucking horrors!

Actually it is kinda spoopy as not only is his bed now unmade, but the covers suddenly begin to slowly rise up, taking form, growling and as they rise up, he reaches and yanks the covers back. NO Emma is not there, instead it’s nothing. Nada.

Thankfully, after oh let’s see.

Raging foot steps upstairs, a rotting bag of who knows what, opening doors, made beds suddenly unmade,  demon growls and hoodie wearing attic girlfriends, a fake emma, shadows in his home, and finally a comforter monster. He is ready to freak out. Good on him.

So he’s decided he is getting on a train, back to London. He is getting a new place, he’s done with this place, screw it all he’s outta here.

Until he’s back in the apartment, because there is a problem with the trains, which having lived in Europe, seriously there’s always an issue with that or the subway and it’s a pain in the ass. Great way to get around, absolutely amazing. Cheap too. But a pain in the ass.

So he’s back home, only to have another sleepy night disturbed ,as this time he has creepy demon hands appearing in his shower behind the shower curtain. Again only to vanish. I’m enjoying this now. Because he’s actually acting like a proper human being and not just freaked out but seriously on the verge of breaking down as a person. It’s great for a change versus his normal.

It’s at this point the film lets us know, shit’s about to go down, as a title card prompts us that this was the end of his documentary shot footage, and the last few minutes we are about to see, are from his cloud upload, and is presented of course say it with me. Unedited.

The mans final moments are spent sitting up in bed, looking absolutely out of it and like he hasn’t slept in days. But he’s going to make one last honest go of it, as he lays down, shuts the lights off, and the magic happens.

We get the static wobbly woo on film,he’s tossing and turning as footsteps loudly approach once more.

Exciting isn’t it?

Well don’t get too excited about it. Or do.

So as our usual demon activity begins to happen once more. We are greeted by, you guessed it. Hoody demon!

Who promptly stabs the shit out of Nick in his sleep. Phasing in and out of the footage, until they decide for films sake, to move over toward the camera recording, remove their hood and mask, only to reveal it was Agatha all along.

I mean it was Emma all along! Emma the attic girlfriend.

She grins, puts the mask back on and somehow teleports out. The end. Seriously movie ends right then and there.

The End

Where to start, oh boy…

Y’know, for what it is? It’s not that bad. I say that with a LOT of caveats behind it. But for ultra low to no budget. It’s not that bad.

You can see the idea was there, you can see they had a particular vision and they reached for it. The scares are, not especially scary, but they did their best. Again you could see the intent and what they were aiming for. It just, didn’t nail it.

But they still got distribution, it got released and they did it. I would commend it more if this were their first feature. But it is not.

They’ve done a couple films.found footage and the budgets are, pretty much in line, I believe the cost of the film was roughly 300 uk or $360 in US currency. Which, that feels about right.

Having seen the other film, his more recent one “The Mansfield Ghost”, I absolutely can believe they found their niche and stuck with the formula of growing a filmmaking resume making ultra low budget to no budget films.

The only difference between what I’ve seen thus far of Richard Mansfield work, and another director who did very similar with budgets under $500 Brett Kelly, the man who shit out Quija Shark. The ONLY difference between these two, is I actually want to SEE and sit through more of Mansfield’s films.

Like comparing this film tonight, with the one I saw not long ago before this months theme. They have improved. They are still relying on some of their cheap tricks but. They manage to use it in a way that though it may not effectively scare the shit out of you. It is still telling their story, and I don’t mind watching it again.

I don’t want or mean to say this and trash the director, but they remind me of something I heard my guitar teacher say once within ear shot of me. I play awesome Rhythm guitar, I can pickup a tune almost immediately and if you start playing something random? I can jump on board and keep it going. But I absolutely sucked at trying lead guitar. I just couldn’t nail solo’s. So one day while practicing in their guitar shop, I heard him and another guitar tech talking and I guess my teacher just had a look on his face that said ‘man this sucks so bad’ because the guitar tech beside him brought it up. I heard him talking to the guy about my playing and said it sucked. Which was pretty discouraging to say the least. But the tech he told that to? I saw him shrug and he said “Well, it’s better to have someone that sucks keep trying, than to have someone who’s amazing stop”, Fuckin’A.

That’s what watching this felt like. Yeah the scares aren’t going to make you shit yourself or even pee a little. Yeah it seems to build up then let you down. You can easily see how the scares were done and know this is something you could expect from a younger family member making a home movie. But they’re still trying to nail it, and they still made and released these films. They produced their vision and made a film which is more than most can say. And unlike some directors who make far more than anyone ever should, off of absolutely atrociously fucking horrible films with zero budget and below beginners adobe skills. This guy unlike them, you should encourage, because they’ll have a lot better more sincere chance of landing what they were after versus people shitting out cheap tit flicks that look like a creeper shot it versus a director.

I never hated this film, I cringed at times with the masked hoodie demon yes, and some of the scares being what they were, yeah it was kinda chuckle worthy. But it didn’t ruin the film for me. It didn’t make me hate them for making this or feel like why did they even bother. Even when we got to the end with Emma, it connected enough I felt with the overall story and what we were given, that yeah. The hoodie and mask suddenly made sense. Emma having the power to teleport and such at will, we can brake down to her being the demon or having super cool magical demon powers. It works. It was a cohesive and well done story, that was shot pretty well. A few stumbles here and there sure. But it was still highly enjoyable.

The same happened with the other one I watched as well. The scares were a bit better, some were run of the mill and normal for found footage. But you could see they did improve a bit and even that story managed to carry and complete itself without disappointment. You just gotta be ready for what you are watching. If you go in expecting the Blair Witch, or Monster Project, you are going to be in for a shock.

The cast were pretty decent, they were believable except for Nick being the coolest cabbage in the patch. But I give the man props. Where others would’ve noped the hell out and gotten out of there, that man was like nope. I put down a deposit on this place and I just moved in.  Emma was kept ominous and appropriately creepy. Especially given now that we know what she was up to, her mannerisms make sense and if we rewatched it, it’d stand out even more, so I give them props on that front as well. Especially when you think of rewatching the thing, that’s already a pluss over Quija Shark. Which I did actually destroy my copy of.

I will never understand the kids today who go around filming every aspect of their lives, let alone the hundreds of dollars they throw around to do so. But everyone wants to be famous somehow so, I guess rats off to ya. But Nick was believable and a fun guy, I still enjoyed seeing how he met his end, the tarot reading scene at first was a bit too spot on for what was to come, but again knowing now what we know about Emma, it’s kinda cool and funny that she was being sinister enough to point blank tell him what was going to happen, and that she’d be the one to do it.

I don’t want to associate the film with the memory of Quija Shark, so I will save it and my memory. All of your memories by instead bringing up one of the best examples of following your dream job, and your vision on screen. Bad CGI Sharks. Those guys made a love letter to a genre they loved and you could absolutely see on every scene their love for it, their passion, and that they actually paid attention and shot a competent film. You can cheer for their next project moving forward and actually are glad they decided to follow their dream. That film also came to me while watching this because it gave me the same vibe. It made me hope this guy continues on and does more films and eventually lands themselves a proper budgeted film. I just hope they earn that chance.  I mean the HAVE worked on some films with budget in the 4 digit region so, I mean they aren’t entirely making films off a months salary.

Absolutely there is a lot that could’ve been improved upon or done better sure. But for what it was, it works, I can’t fault them for that.

I mean shit I’ve watched and praised shark films where they used a goddamn plastic shark that cost a dollar from the dollar store and used homemade slime for mutants so. Yeah. It’s not bad enough to warrant trashing, it’s not boring to a point of turning it off or feeling you wasted your time. It’s a good way to spend your weekend and worth adding to your rotation. Like this is something I would’ve put on while keeping a stream of movies playing in the background, and I would remember.

So good on them for that.

So far with our films we have tickled the peak of greatness, we’ve stumbled over stupidity, and we found some fairly nice times. But we have not stepped in shit so. Lets keep that up.

With that, I shall see you all tomorrow and until then, the next time a creepy lady offers you a charm for your house? Punch her right in the front butt and tell her to keep her demons to herself. Actually don’t do that, you’ll get arrested and jail is not as interesting or nearly as fun as television makes it out to be. In fact don’t do a lot of the things I say, just take my advice on films…yeah.

Yeah. TILL THEN!