Found Footage February Day 19 The Collingswood Story

Day 19

The Collinswood Story

Well this is going to be a treat. It apparently was the FIRST found footage movie made using webcams BEFORE the pandemic fun happened, and I believe even predates one of the VHS anthologies that used it as well.

That sounds interesting and I genuinely hope that it is, because I had to go out on a limb here and BUY the damn thing. This would be my second blind purchase, and another from Cauldron video, the fine folks who released a bluray of another film we reviewed her about the possession of Altair. I am once more going into this fully blind, I read the premise of it being the first film to use webcam and I left it at that. No idea what to expect. Be it ghost, goblins, helicopter dicks or evil spookiness. We will find out together and I am sure it’ll be a fun ride, at least I strongly hope it is, otherwise well. We had a good run.

That being said lets dig into it and see what we have!

The Film

Sweet lord baby Jesus this better be a good movie. It was made in 2002, I was 22 at the time, and the tech used in this is very…like the music we hear in the background. Very, incredibly, painfully 90’s. Again, there are some generations we need to forget happened and move on, or burn it and bury it.

We have a couple who is….sort of a couple, sort of not. Rebecca and Johnny. Rebecca is the girl who made it out of a shithole town and went off to college at a better bigger town, so naturally she is super deluxe excited to be there and away from the town. However her boyfriend Johnny is still in that town, and apparently an automechanic…possibly. Why do I keep saying possibly with this loving couple?

Because its implied they are doing a long distance relationship. Using the video chat program dekko(all lowercase) to chat and close the distance between them, which I have done, and AM doing as well just not with a 90’s tech program. However Rebecca ask her boyfriend “So are you..dating anyone?”

Now, granted. This could be a test.

Like the girlfriend you should question when they bring up things like NTR, which is manga/hentai term for cheating stories. If she jokingly brings up something like “So babe if I were on like, a vacation. And we wouldn’t see each other for a month? Or like 3 months? What would you do if I said it’d be okay if you went out with other girls? Like if I said I don’t mind if you did?”

If…

IF. You reply “Well, hell yeah I’d be down to pound”, or the more simpler “Well I guess. I mean if you wanted me to or said I could? I suppose I would.”

Or you just whip your dick out, throw it on the table and say “MY SEED IS ONLY FOR YOU!”, don’t do that, it’d be awkward. Unless she’s into it.

Eitherway? Your answer will be recorded and met with a nod and “I see, interesting.”

You have fallen for the trap.

You will want to know what “I see, interesting.” Means, do not. It will not be pleasant. You do not know the outcome, nor should you guess to know it. Seriously, it’s a trap…always.

WELL he doesn’t give the wrong answer and say ‘yes I’m dating and banging’, and he doesn’t give the right answer either of ‘No of course not.’ His answer instead is “Uuuuuuuuh…no comment”

This is the reverse trap.

That could simply mean the guy doesn’t want to talk about it because he doesn’t want to date, and is trying to imply that YOU are his main focus. It also could be a lets not ruin your birthday and talk about chicks I’m grinding on while you are gone.

Again, it’s a trap card.

ANYWAY

The are they-aren’t they couple are enjoying some cam time, and we learn that Rebecca is living in one of the historic homes of Collingswood. Which she pays $300 a month to live there. She is doing a paper, project, report, book…thing! On historic houses in the area she lives now. This shall be the basis for our story. I do believe.

Well the two are having a fairly nice birthday conversation, it’s slightly awkward, and slightly cute.

It’s the last best thing we will have for a while.

As We are introduced to…Billy.

Billy is………….I would say Billy is a time traveling Billy Bob Thornton who decided to try acting in his 20’s, while having no talent what so ever.

Honestly it’s thankfully short, however painfully, horribly bad.

He is our, drunk party friend. He is giving me the hardest overdose of 90’s torture.

Not just his persona. Which is wearing a beer helmet sucking a straw with two beers loaded into it, with a stack of beer cans behind him, party posters and, and…you get it.

But it’s also the soundtrack. These people did their own royalty free music and it is. The most. Um.

You know that feeling when a dentist numbs you, and they begin drilling and then filling your tooth? How you can feel that happening to your tooth. Sense the stuff filling it, kinda feel the drill, your tongue wriggles to hide, you smell burning tooth and feel flecks of it hitting your tongue? You keep praying it wont slip and stab your tongue or worse, under it?

That’s the music. It is soul sucking 90’s pop rock that should have died in a back alley in the 90’s. Billy Bob is. Only hear as the party friend to Johnny, and the giver of bad dating advice.

He is ‘that’ friend in every mid 90’s film, that was usually played by James DeBello.

Anyway Johnny is having a crisis. It’s Rebecca’s Bday and they are spending it together over video chat. He wants to attempt possibly getting freaky with her later on in the evening online. Which was a lot more taboo back then and not so easily talked into. So good luck Johnny. But he is reluctant. Not because it’s awkward asking your girlfriend to strip and clam jam on a webcam In front of you. And she might also really not feel comfortable doing it. No he is reluctant because he has a case of the jelly belly doubts.

He has a pretty girlfriend, living in another town away from him, she could be dating guys, or gals, and partying on nose candy. He just wants a little assurance that she still thinks he’s cute and wants to hold hands, maybe touch tips.

Billy of course tells him if she’s alone in a big house in a new town? She’s dating some other loser. This is 90’s friend support. Because if your partner is cheating on you, the other person has to be a loser, which if you think too much about it, that would be to say your partner prefers dating losers, and she is dating you, which-

Before we can get into that sad reality in our therapy session. We are skipping Billy, your welcome. Seriously it’s pure pain with him on screen.

THE ONLY thing, we need to know about Billy. Is he is suggesting to Johnny, what will kick things off with our movies plot.

This is the age when the internet was still a new thing. A time where if you can believe it, we used to give out our phone number and address to people we’d just spent an hour talking to online. Scary times I know.

So people had fun back then dialing online into random numbers and chat rooms looking to see what they had to offer up for entertainment.

This leads Billy Bong Forehead to discovering an online psychic, Vera Madeline. He tells his friend how she totally contacted the dead for him and it was totes worth it. Creepy cool fun.

If you really want more of Billy though? You’ll get it, when Johnny tells him to fuck off and Billy drops his pants telling Johnny to kiss his ass. Yes. We see Billy’s ass. But we also see his taint. We did not ask, nor wish to ever see, nor know of its existence. But there it is. Look upon it, and despair.

So Rebecca is alone, in a big historic house for her birthday. Spending it with her semi boyfriend Johnny. Who has a totally KILLER list of fun birthday activities for her. And she is totes ready for some fun.

What fun you ask? Well yes obviously the psychic. But not so fast oh no. First. We have two reasons Rebecca might be considering a new boyfriend.

Put yourself, for the moment into her shoes, her 90’s shoes. You have a partner, lucky you. It’s your birthday. So for fun. They give you an unknown persons number online.

This number is a real number, your phone number. Your partner gives you a random person onlines number and says to call them. You expect it to be a silly friend. It is instead, a hugely bearded man with missing teeth and a Florida skin condition called a tan, with a beer belly. He does a little dance for you, talks about banging cute 20 year olds, and starts jerkin it while staring at you.

Before you can ask your partner what the actual fuck. You start getting a call on your laptop. Your partner grins and tells you to answer it. It is a man in a bamboo shack, with a disco ball. Singing a semi bad song with a ukulele. Your partner tells you “I gave them your number”.

This was his plan, for the ultimate party time birthday. Giving his girlfriend the number of a horny bearded man online missing teeth, and giving her number to a guy singing ukulele songs in a shack as sort of an online singing telegram. Make if this what you will if it happened to you.

She naturally has some questions for Johnny and his idea of fun. Especially the bearded man, which Johnny tells her he found him while he was stoned and they talked about weird stuff and mushrooms so. Obviously you gotta share the wealth on that one.

So aside having two weirdos now in possession of her number. We move on to the main event of the evening. The contacting of an online psychic! Hurrah!

Well, 90’s psychics were a fun breed. Vera Madeline, she’s everything you’d expect from an early psychic. From having a blacked out room, with two candelabra’s two sunglasses to protect her identity, or look super bitchin. Either works.

It’s a kind of fun moment in its corniness and how she presents herself. She runs through what sounds like a prerecorded message played for every call she gets. We are informed this call will be free thankfully, but if she request further details it’ll cost her $50 and a visit to her website. Everyone had an angelfire website back then. REMEMBER ANGELFIRE?!

I hope you feel old now, cuz I do.

So Rebecca is into the fun of this and gives a fake name. Not to test her but well, for security. For what it’s worth back then.

It’s a short call, which is less of a call for Rebecca and more of an interruption it seems. The psychic tells her she senses Rebecca is stubborn and has no time for most people. She also senses loss, a death.

If you want answers you won’t find any here.

Instead our psychic blows out her desk candle, begins murmuring in an unknown language, and tells Rebecca, well she has a message for her, from a dead person. Which she doesn’t give her. She instead tells her the best line for getting someone to pay you “I have a message for you, it’s of vital importance, but I cannot tell you here, you must pay me on my website and I will tell you.”

I mean that…that’s pretty messed up. It’s like me calling random numbers at night and telling people in a panic “Look you don’t know me, but we are best friends in another multiverse, I can’t explain it to you now, but I need you to wire me five grand IMMEDIATELY so I can send it to our other dimensional selves to stop something cataclysmic. Don’t ask any questions, just give me the money PLEASE!”

If it works, holy shit am I gonna be shocked and I’m gonna upgrade my pc to dual 4090’s. But more than likely they’ll hang up.

Well Vera DOES hang up on Rebecca, and she quickly calls her boyfriend back to tell him how weird it was. Sure it was a scam and silly. However the lady did know her real name somehow. But thankfully Rebecca is a smart cookie, and determines the lady must’ve known it from the caller ID. Which was still a novel new thing back then.

Trust me saying back then sounds weird as hell for me, given 2002 seems not so long ago, until you realize it was 11 years ago. Man time flies.

At least she enjoyed herself on the freaky but short chat. However now it’s Johnny’s turn.

Naturally there’s a difference between the two immediately. Mostly that Rebecca is seen as a bit more open, and spiritually welcoming. Johnny is. Well. Johnny. Which is to say he is the least spiritually open man, in fact the only open thing about him, is his fly.

Made ya look. Pervo.

So she is immediately able to tell Johnny the truth about himself. That he is insecure, gullible. Jealous, and has a small penis. He knows this to be true.

Things are pretty run of the mill, until he mentions that his girlfriend talked to her a few minutes ago. The moment she realizes his gal pal is Rebecca. The conversation changes immediately. And in a funny way.

This lady, who told Rebecca to give her money and hung up on her. Is now telling Johnny, to have Rebecca call her back, and she will talk to her there…and her website. To warn her. To tell her ‘the message’.

Of course Johnny senses an opportunity to win points with his lady fair and ask the psychic to tell him the message, and he’ll make sure Rebecca gets it. This does not go over well. In fact it’s kind of hilarious.

Johnny wants her to tell him whats up.

She tells Johnny no.

He ask nicely.

She tells him “Telling you would open you up to danger and invite evil-‘

He cuts her off and tells her “Trust me bro, I can handle anything!”

So, she was right about Johnny, he is gullible. He is also a moron. I mean that sincerely. The man is told flat out. If I tell you, what is meant for your girlfriend, to warn her. You are going to invite dark forces to find you. He is making himself a target.

However, on the flip side. She is also admitting to him that, by her telling Rebecca. This means Rebecca will be visited by evil and made a target. Sooooo…no one is going home safe tonight.

Now the funny part, is the message which he is to tell Rebecca, word for word. Is less of a message, and more of an info dump.

SO, let’s hope Johnny takes notes.

Vera tells him the following; There are rumors, of a secret society, an underground cult. It’s founding member was Alan Tashi. He lived in Collingswood in the mid 1800’s. The neighbors discovered the bodies of 9 girls in a well on his property. Their eyes had been carved out and their mouths had been cut ear to ear, giving them a grotesque smile. When the towns people found out about it, they surrounded his house, but he barricaded himself inside. They knocked the doors down and they searched all the rooms, but they couldn’t find him anywhere. They did find one thing though, in the attic, It was a child’s toy. A stick of wood with a tin face on it. A Halloween shaker left by Alan Tashi.

That is, a lot to remember and relay back to Rebecca. It also isn’t exactly. Well. I mean it’s backstory, but not anything what so ever that seems to answer the importance of Rebecca calling. She’s studying the homes of Collingswood so it’s safe to assume she knows this crap.

SO, does good Johnny relay this information back to his beloved?

Absolutely!

His exact words for her are “She said some uh, weird stuff. About the place you live in, I think you should call her.”

Good job Johnny, you tried.

She’s so boned.

Well she can’t be bothered to deal with anything, she also doesn’t care about the psychic lady either. But Johnny however does. So he begins searching the world wide web so he can uncover anything about Collingswood himself.

This was the before time people. Imagine if you will, a life. A time. A place where Google did not yet exist. I am talking about the time of Netscape. The time when Internet Explorer was actually still something people actively used.

It’s making me nostalgic for a time I don’t think anyone would want to feel nostalgic for. I mean the 90’s had some ‘good’ music. But it was mostly shit and a style that really existed, even I bought into it. Somewhere there is evidence out there, that I at one time wore blue jeans, sneakers, an Alice in Chains shirt and had a flannel tied around my waist. I also carried my backpack with one hand or I slung it over my shoulder.

Again, I cannot stress enough. The 90’s was not a time to be nostalgic about.

Anyway sorry for the rant but it’s just that, THERE IS NOTHING GOING ON!!

Seriously. This is really kinda boring. Okay we got some backstory from the psychic, which amounted to, nothing. Rebecca doesn’t care. Johnny kinda cares. And Billy Bong is still for some reason in this movie when he doesn’t need to exist what so ever.

Honestly, for a woman who is studying the ‘Historic houses of Collingswood’, not to remotely be interested, or have researched anything to do with the house she is in, that’s really. Kinda dumb. But she’s not dumb. We were told she is incredibly intelligent and bright. She is also spiritually open.

She just doesn’t care about child murders, or a judge killing his family in a house. Apparently.

But Johnny for some reason, he is fully invested in this, and this movie is slapping us in the face with even more of an “oh shit you nostalgic bitch” moment. Johnny ask Rebecca to keep her webcam and their call open as they go to bed. So it’s like they’re sleeping together.

It sounds stupid, I know. But I had done the same, a few times. It sounds romantic, it can be kinda silly and cute at first. But it will give you aches and sore ears if you use a headset.

This isn’t the shameful moment no. No it is not. What is. Is when we see Johnny’s bed. Motherfucker has an Insane Clown Posse poster.

Goddamn man.

Every time they show us something 90’s in this, I hear the scene from Pet Cemetery in my head, “Sometimes, dead is better.”

He wasn’t lyin.

So yeah, unfortunately not much in the way of scares in this film.

The most that happens throughout small parts of the film. Is a very odd, we will say choice, and likely, highly likely, the most low budget they could afford effect for a scare.

Since this came out in 2002…no. I’ll save that for the end of the review.

The scary stuff we get, are black and white moments during Rebecca dreaming. We get shots of water running down a brick well with a metal ladder. We get photographs that are semi transparent and fade in and out. Photos of old time babies, children, dead cultist. With some spoopy midi loops played in the background. But that’s it.

It’s very barest of the bones, and honestly. I could see this being made in 2002. With Windows Movie Maker.

There is at least one good scare in this movie though, so far. I am hopeful there will be some more. But so far the best near scare we get. Is Johnny looking online at crime scene photos of the murders in the house, and the bath tub where this judge drowned his family. As he looks at the photos, one of the photos of a bath tub shows the Halloween toy they said the cult leader left. A stick toy with a toy head on it. So there it is, sitting in the bath tub. But the next moment Johnny looks at the tub? The toy is gone. He reloads the website, re opens the file folder and still nothing.

It’s simple but effective and actually did something for this movie which otherwise has been rather minimal in its scares.

Well all it takes is one day and Rebecca is now invested in finding out more about what the psychic wanted to tell her. So she’s venturing to the library, researching into the cult, discovers the cults origins which began in France, and it seems we are getting somewhere!

Rebecca decides to contact Vera and finally ask about these cult activities, and the people who died there. But Vera has nothing to tell her. In fact she says she doesn’t even know Johnny or Rebecca. She just smiles and tells her that ‘The disclaimer says my services are for entertainment purposes only.’

Naturally Rebecca is pissed by this and hangs up.

How DARE this lady tell her boyfriend about cult history in a house she’s staying at in a town she lives in which she is studying and doing a paper/project/book on.

I mean it is just…what the hell.

So Johnny doesn’t  believe this, and he doesn’t like some psychic telling his girlfriend that her stories were just for entertainment purposes. So he calls that spirit lady up to give her a piece of his mind!

Which when he does, she is selling him an entirely different story. She is telling him his girlfriend is in super danger. Not just normal danger, but SUPER deadly danger.

It’s. It’s just…really confusing.

She tells him that Rebecca is in danger, and needs to get out of that house. He tells her he will go and save her, that he is leaving right now!

But she tells him not to.

She says for him to stay away from her. Then to go help her. But also stay away.

Go, stay, go, stay, go, stay. She is not conflicted, she is not possessed. She is just feeding him very confusing intel. She tops it all of with telling him once and for all, he doesn’t need to go there to be with her. Because ‘She has him now’

Which certainly isn’t creepy at all.

I mean it’s really not because this film is really low on its creepy factor. I mean the toothless bare chested man was the creepiest thing thus far.

God I hope she means Rebecca has him now.

So having heard this, and believing whatever Vera tells him now, Johnny the jelly belly believes his girlfriend definitely has replaced him with a new man. It doesn’t matter if the man is dead or not. He feels he’s been replaced, so he tells her this. Of course she reacts logically to this and is insulted that he would believe the word of an online psychic over his own girlfriend.

As an act of 90’s rebellion? She is going to investigate and find the spooky house of the cult, against her boyfriends wishes. AND she is going to go do all the horrible, terrible things she shouldn’t do, to make him mad and put herself in danger.

Which means of course, yes she finds the cultist house. Yes they play creepy music and slow the film down. Yes we get more semi translucent photos of dead cultist and bearded men.

We also get Johnny talking to the psychic, who is telling him to stay away from her, and to tell her to get out of the house. Which he does. He calls her, tells her “Becka, babe. You gotta get out of that house, it’s hella cursed!”

But she laughs him off as a little man who is fooled by psychic trickery. So she decides to show him she found the attic where the cult did their evil wicked stuff.

He naturally tells her to gtfo, but she says lulkthxbye

Obviously she is going up into the spooky attic. Which isn’t that spooky

Honestly it’s a bit dusty but that’s about it. Even with the addition of spooky music it’s just. An attic.

But we got things happening fast and furious now. She is finding a whole new world up there in that attic and she is exploring freely. All while Johnny watches and continues asking her to please, pretty please go back down stairs and get out of there. Which she won’t. Because “this place is so cool, don’t act like it’s not.”

It’s about this time she starts getting a call from Vera, who is asking her “Bitch what are you doing there, didn’t you see the signs? Why would you go into that place biiiiiiitch.”

Which, is close to what she says to her. But honestly it’s pointless. I mean it’s just…there is no threat, but the threat we were made to believe is there.

Naturally things go badly. Suddenly an unassuming attic becomes filled with jingles from the Halloween stick toy, we see flashes of the bearded cultist face. We now have pentagrams drawn all over the place. Eerie music is playing and, we get it. It’s evil.

Rebecca is attacked by the image of the bearded man. She can’t get out of the attic. Meanwhile Johnny watches screaming out for Rebecca, and we see his closet door open behind him. Then the lights go out. We hear growling and snarling. Johnny screaming no and begging Rebecca to “Tell him to stop!”

We hear him die, and the next time we see the lights return on his side? We see Johnny slumped back in his chair. Eyes plucked out of his head, and mouth slit open ear to ear. That’s at least what the red lines on his face indicate.

The webcam turns back to Rebecca’s side and we see the Halloween toy behind her, as she smiles demonically and the movie ends.

Thank fuck.

The End

Okay so. I have thoughts.

Oh I have thoughts on this.

This is definitely a product of its time. It reminds me of. A porn. A very specific porn in fact. Which yes I own.

Batpussy.

It’s about Batgirl. Who fights crime, and gets around on a large ball that she bounces on and rides on road sides. The film focuses mostly on an evil villain, who is trying to have sex with his wife. And Bat girl happens to find them, he over powers her, and is going to now have the sex with her. That is the whole film.

Now, it sounds funny, and like your basic run of the mil porn. Here is where you are wrong.

The film was made in 1977. The man in the film doing all the sex? Has erectile dysfunction. He never actually has sex. We watch him struggle for 55 minutes. To get and sustain a hard on, while trying to have sex with his wife, until he tries with batgirl.

Which is both hilarious, gross, and sad. He is not happy about having E.D. and blames his wife during the film. When Batgirl gets into the action. He immediately announces THIS is what he needs, a hot woman in her prime! This man fully believes this is his moment to bang a beautiful woman in front of his wife, and call it a porno. He tries. Desperately, and growls in frustration, because he STILL can’t get it up.

That is the entire movie, for 55 of the longest minutes of your life.

It remains to this day, the oddest oddity I have ever witnessed, and both the saddest, funniest, grossest thing I’ve seen. The world did not need to see Batpussy. But there it is, by the grace of horndogs and bluray. For the world to see.

So, now. How does The Collingswood Story relate to a hilariously sad gross porno?

Because. The premise sounds possibly fun. The box art for both? Promises something fun. The story of both films is intriguing. But the experience watching these is entirely the opposite of what it promises.

I honestly believe this was the first found footage film ever made using webcams. I absolutely would believe that. I also would 100% believe this was edited and made entirely with Windows Movie Maker. I say that not as a mean joke. But as an honest statement because I have used that program to make short movies in the past.

This film, I am absolutely sure, is the product of someone’s home project made on their ungodly huge pc with a small screen. The fade in and fade out effects, the desktop layouts used as backgrounds for the video calls on everyones personal desktop and laptop. The fading in and out of images imposed over the film. It’s all the most basic of basic free editing programs of the time.

In that? It’s very VERY nostalgic for me. I used to spend hours with programs like that to make silly videos. Somewhere out there is a hard drive with my trailer I made for The Furbs, my killer furby movie. Which was done with a MiniDV camcorder and edited using Windows Movie Maker. Because it was free on my OS. This film was about as scary as that trailer I made as well.

Which is to say it wasn’t. At all.

It could’ve been but they really couldn’t achieve it with the tools they had. They tried, they absolutely did. But it came off as more of, well Batpussy. A weird oddity of its time.

Is that bad? No not especially. It’s a little disappointing, absolutely. I was hoping for some good scares, something more.

Unfortunately this didn’t offer it. One of the entertaining aspects of the film was just the period it was made in. Right up to the one thing I didn’t talk much about, and was just well. Fun. The desktops of each person. Rebecca, Johnny, and Billy. Each one of them has a personalized desktop. Rebecca’s is pink and bubbly, it has proper icons and cute things. Johnny’s looks more on the hard 90’s rock side, same programs as Rebecca, but different icons that reflect his personality. Much like Billy, who’s desktop icons are all beer related or sexy ladies. Because that’s his character in a nutshell.

Every effect in this film, right down to their chat program is 90’s, and 90’s stock.

You could tell what they were aiming for, what they wanted to do. But they just couldn’t exactly reach it quite to the level they were hoping. But they still managed to put together something interesting. Like you can look at this film, and see there is a movie there, but more than anything I think, you get more out of it if you look at it as a filmmaker, and you appreciate it from that aspect. Honestly this was less a horror film to me, and almost more a surreal film. The haunts, the scares. It’s all done in a very, dream like state with a touch of gothic horror, like Hammer films. In that respect, it’s interesting.

As a horror film it’s just, not. At all. I can’t say how I would’ve seen this in my 20’s when it came out. I don’t mean that as in, I don’t know how I’d see it because this looks like it was made and put on CD-R’s and handed out, but more, I don’t know how I would’ve reacted having seen it back then. I think I would’ve called it shit and walked away. But now? It’s something again I see what they aimed for. And what this could have been, but they did what they could with what they had.

It still failed unfortunately, but not badly. It’s sort of in the same vein for me as The House on Mansfield Street. That was also a micro budget film, but that director had a bit more film magic backing his project than these people did.

This film had a lot of potential, and I really feel if the director had more skill, Had access to more programs, like a lot of us now do have. They absolutely could’ve made something better, I have no doubt. Or they could’ve made something completely horrible and forgettable. Anything is possible. I just like to think that, if someone had an idea, and decided to get people together for it to see it through. They would put the work into it and get their vision out there to the best of their ability, or closest they could.

It's not a film to shit on, it was just unfortunately boring in its short comings. Not just the effects and editing programs. The story itself. There was a lot of disconnected points. Things didn’t really add up to the conclusion they were after.

You have Vera, giving Rebecca a warning, then telling her she’ll share all of it if she pays her. But then she talks to Johnny, and she tells him everything. But what she has to tell him, is just backstory. It’s nothing at all indicative of a threat, there’s no “Your girlfriend is in danger, there is a cult after her, an evil spirit that dwelled there has set out to claim her.” There was none of that. Instead it was an info drop and the assumption your audience will put together the story you have in your mind for the film you are making. It’s not a good assumption to make. The film needed more connective tissue.

Even having read the back of the film, the synopsis there? Is not what we got on film. It actually sounds a lot more sinister.

“When Rebecca went away to college, her boyfriend John thought video chatting would help them stay in touch. But idle curiosity leads to a dark secret when Rebecca and John video chat with Vera Madeline, an online Psychic, who initiates a deadly reign of terror over their lives.”

We didn’t get that!

Where is THAT story!

I mean even if we go by, what Rebecca told John, about how Vera acted like she didn’t know her and what happened the previous night was just a joke, but when Vera talks to John she is telling him nothing but doom and gloom. I mean. You can sort of get that? But not especially.

Like the clues of that are there, when she tells Johnny that he is gullible and unsure about his lovers interest in him. Absolutely you could see that she was using Johnny to get Rebecca to that house and to the cult leaders evil ghost. If not for the fact, she also is trying to warn Rebecca to stay away! Vera feeds Johnny everything she could to potentially get him to feed Rebecca’s curiosity. But it only, mildly works that way. She just seems to go off on her own. And meanwhile when Vera talks later to Rebecca, she is begging her directly to leave. She isn’t trying to setup Rebecca for a horrible ending, she’s trying to save her from one, while at the same time seemingly using Johnny to get her into the idea of a cult house. It’s just, confusingly done. But yet, the idea is still there. The films premise, you can tell what it was trying to achieve, it just, didn’t exactly get there. At least how it planned.

As I said, it’s a hard one to put down because it’s not especially entertaining as a film, as a filmmaking lesson and bit of an oddity it has value. It was certainly something made ahead of its time and I can appreciate that a lot, absolutely.

It just wasn’t that well executed and gave off more of a surreal vibe versus a horror vibe.

Do I regret buying it?

I just admitted to buying a movie called Bat Pussy…if I can own that piece of shit and not feel at all regretful for owning it, I won’t feel regret for having bought The Collingswood Story.

Though if you asked me which one would I be most likely to rewatch? That’s a tale for another time.

Until tomorrow people, next time you feel like having fun online with your romantic partner? Don’t call us a psychic, just stick to Pornhub and search for porn directed by women. Or you know, party watch some films together and not visit cultist houses raging with 90’s demons.