Found Footage February Day 27 Savageland!!

Day 27

Savageland

This was highly recommended to me by multiple people. Another one of those, the less you know the better, and that being the case I will highly STRESS again, please watch the movie before you read the review or take a listen. I like these found footage films done as documentaries and this is supposed to be a really well done one. I usually wouldn’t try hyping it up, but when the people who recommend it to me like that put it that way, well yeah I kinda think I’ll let myself get sucked into the hype machine and hope for the best. If it turns out I was horrible, terribly wrong well. That’s on me.

That being said, lets enter the savagelands!!

The Film

Well this is fun, but horrible. We are dealing with the aftermath of…an entire town being wiped out somehow, over night. And only one person, ONE survived the entire ordeal.

This takes place in June of 2011, and it’s recorded as the third largest mass murder in American history. It happened in a small town in Arizona near the Mexican border called, Sangre De Cristo.

Like a typical documentary we are shown the afterman, quick scenes of the slaughter, and slowly we will regress back into the events leading up to, and before hand. How 57 people over one night just ended up murdered is. Well impressive for one, I mean it is. That’s a high body count they are pinning on one guy. Which yes, they are. Francisco Salazar, an immigrant is being held responsible for the murders, so yeah. One guy, killing 57 people that’s…impressive. But aside that, it’s also hugely bizarre. It’s almost like a Croatoa situation so, who knows!

All we do know, is Salazar is a bad, bad man that people don’t trust and fear. They tell us that he was working at a local ranch, he was found ranting and raving, covered in blood, holding a camera. The moment they put him in his jail cell, he stopped ranting and seemed to feel ‘safe’. Which you’d imagine would be rather, alarming.

But he’s a weirdo, and an immigrant. Everyone that is interviewed talks about the man as if he’s the devil himself. Ranging from people talking about him as being a demented weirdo. Others saying he was a quiet man who did odd jobs, and acted…oddly.

But we SURE are covering that he absolutely was not arrested because he is Hispanic.

Though absolutely that seems very much to be the case. There are a lot of people talking about how he, like the rest of ‘his people’ have no morals, they don’t care about life outside their own. They come into this country and take things from Americans etc. It sound like what you’d expect from a town like, well the one wiped out and surrounding it. But it isn’t just the racist, it’s also people who blame the cartels for the crime in their beautiful city. Which yes also makes them racist for assuming he could’ve been a hitman for a cartel that wiped out an entire town of good honest god fearing people.

It’s, unsettling and just one of those, you kind of expect at this point. There are a lot of interviews, and random shots shown to us of people in surrounding towns telling racist jokes toward Hispanics. Talking about the ‘need’ for public execution of immigrants, to keep them in check. It almost borders on, hard racism, and Klan racism.

The only things anyone said about him that WEREN’T related to his race, was that he was arrested because he was covered in 15 different blood types. His camera had photos of dead bodies, including lots of kids. He looked crazy and out of his mind, and then you have his family talking about how he was nothing like the towns people tried painting him to be. He wasn’t insane, a cannibal or a murderer.

Which, wait a second, rewind please.

Cannibal…

We are told that, he had bitten people, bitten off their fingers, other victims had bite marks or chunks taken from them. And on one of his knuckles he had a bite mark they took to be an attack of desperation from one of his victims.

This…sounds worrying.

This ALSO is sounding like a mild, small town case of potential. Oh what’s it called…I think there’s a word for it. I think, it might be called…

ZOMBIES?!

WAS this town of rednecks taken out by zombies?! I mean the biting thing has my radar going up, and the fact he himself was bitten apparently. But seems to be sitting in prison okay and unchanged. Which is, odd.  But I mean it’s possible.

The people being interviewed talk about how he even looked and acted guilty, Like Dahmer and others, where he wouldn’t speak during his trial. He never spoke to his defense, ever. Which usually is related to guild, shame, recognition of what they’d done.

His trial was swift, he was found guilty of multiple murders, and was sentenced to lethal injection. And he was killed without appeal.

This, actually is a very interesting and cool idea. It’s sounding like this guy happened to survive, well mostly. A zombie outbreak and had to do, what he…had to do. Only to then be sentenced to death, because he was an immigrant, and it’s a bit difficult to defend 15 types of blood on your body, without seeming like a lunatic. But him not defending himself, or trying to state his innocence is. Odd.

I dig it though. This is really interesting and I gotta give a lot of credit to the filmmakers. This has an absolute authentic look and feel to it. Every interview, news clip, local tv show bit. All of this. It looks real. Again, it feels like one of those, if you just put this on TV, like Ghostwatch, without any preface to it being a movie. I could see this causing a panic. It’s just really good, and I mean shit, we’re only 25 mintues or so into this thing. We still got a whole hour to go!

I love it.

It’s tragic and fucked up what’s happening to him, and how quickly people dismissed him as being guilty without any evidence, just purely because of who he is, what he is, and how he was found.

We learn that he was interrogated and interviewed only one, for 13 hours about what happened. After that he never did a single news interview, never asked to see anyone, not his sister or any body. Just left alone and waited to die.

It isn’t until an author, Lawrence Ross. Through repeated efforts to gain access to that interview, do we learn and for me get actually confirmed intel that this IS in deed a case of the nom nom zombies!

This has to be one of the cooler, and yet creepy things I’ve seen in a zombie film, assuming off a 90% certainty this IS one, but the interview clip we see play has the lady interviewing him say “You said that they were people that you knew, but something wasn’t right about them.” And he coldly responds, “They were the same people, but they were dead.”

It’s creepy and I love it, I want to see more of it, but it doesn’t seem we will be getting more of it, sadly.

What’s odd though, is they decide not to use this video interview in his first AND second trial. Why he had a second trial I don’t know, unless they had more murders to pin on him. But apparently, at least according to the defense. They didn’t use the interview, because it sounded like he wanted to die. The way he talked about people, what happened. It sounded insane, but also things like him saying “They were the same, but they were dead.” It can be interpreted as you killed them, you knew them, they’re just dead now.

“It doesn’t matter what you do to me, they’re still out there. At least they can’t get me in here.”

That…okay so yes, zombies. 100%, but that line alone, that’s scary. It’s creepy and unsettling. It’s also sad.

The man was accepting that being in prison. Even being dead, was better than the alternative. Which he’s right! Between zombies and prison, pick the place they’re less likely to find your ass vulnerable.

…though I guess technically prison would not be a place to keep your ass from being vulnerable. Hm.

Anyway

We learn from the truck driver who dropped him off, and the police who searched him. He had no weapons on him, just covered in blood. The only thing he had on him, was his camera, and lenses. Which is part of why he begam their suspect.

Because the man took photographs of anything, and everything.

Which ranged from things like abandoned buildings, to wild life. To sandwiches people dropped on the floor. To dead animals, decaying animals. Bones, and candid pictures of people and kids.

As a photographer, That’s pretty much what you end up doing, mostly. A big theme that sells photographs is life and death. Case in point, I won an award for a photo I took, of a Tulip. It was just beginning to bud, it was a white Tulip, it had a vibrant green stem and muted background of dark and light greens behind it. At the bottom of it, was a dark brown stem that’d died off and fallen. I liked it in the shot because it sort of framed the bottom of my photo. I liked the shot because the flower looked beautiful up close, especially with the bright vibrant green with a dark green back drop. I won the award, because the judges left comments saying “The perfect representation of life and death” “The capture of death with new life budding above the now dead husk is brilliantly poetic”, and something like “The youthful innocence and purity of this newly budding flower representing new beginnings and the start of ones own life cycle, coupled with the depiction of aging and death. Beautiful”

I just liked the flower, and the framing… But sure fuck it, tell me its life and death, give me my award.

That happens a lot, and it’s kind of stupid. Put again, going around Seattle, nothing to do. I’ve taken photos of homeless people, Baristas, people stocking Newspapers, delivery trucks dropping off freight, vendors stocking colorful vegetables. I’ve also taken pictures of graves, broken windows. Cracks in walls and sidewalks if they looked interesting, and if a dead animal was framed in a way that looked interesting, yes I’d take a photo. When I took photo journalism? I shot sports car events, Which also meant shooting what people expect, which is hot woman leaning on or bent over hot cars. So I had tons of pics of women and their chest and butts in different poses along side their cars. I also covered local baseball games for our sports assignments, so as the only baseball diamond around us was for youth baseball. I did my best and took photos of the kids pitching, catching and swinging at the ball. I got some really nice sports shots from different angles, got a 100+ on the assignment, and you better damn well believe I had odd looks from parents and was approached twice about what it was I was doing.

Which I was prepared for! You learn very quickly as a photographer, same as my dad learned as a Real Estate Appraiser, that if you are in your car taking photos of someones house, looking like a federal agent or creeper? Or in my case, taking photos of a youth sports team playing a game? Absolutely someone is going to want answers. So my dad always had his business card, he always handed it to people, told him his name, what his business is, explained what he did. I also had business cards, I also wore my institute badge to show them my ‘credentials’, and I even asked their permission AND offered them my email if they’d like me to send them some of the photos if their kid was in it.

So yeah, it’s awkward as hell having to shoot things that for you are fine and just you doing your job, but knowing people may take it horribly wrong, and kudos on them for being responsible parents. Taking photographs has pissed random people off, me and a friend have had crazy homeless people chase us for taking their picture, I’ve gotten dirty looks from store owners for taking their photo without permission, sometimes you can explain you needed a candid shot and chose them, sometimes you can’t. But if anyone ever tells you or ask you to delete the photo? I would. It’s better not to have an argument or risk a fight. I mean you can tell someone about your rights taking photos on public property and the law being on your side, which is true. But you also live longer and healthier not being a dick like that to people, and you can’t pull that off on taking police officers photos.

So in this man’s case? His hobby as innocent as it was/is. Looks absolutely horrible for him when put under the microscope of criminal investigation.

Just like Johnny Depp found out with Amber Heard in their trial. Sending a sexy text about “I have other uses for your throat my dear” and EVERYONE KNOWING HE MEANS DEEP THROATING HIS COCK!! But her defense team trying to make a big dig text sound like a violent abusive man.

ANYWAY, rant over.

Salazar is looking more and more to people like he is an insane lunatic. Would his photos set him free? No. Why? Because they had photos of everything he took BEFORE that night.

But he DID take photos that night. So what happened to the film? He removed the roll of film inside the truck that picked him up, and there it stayed. The cops arrested him from there, and the driver said he knew nothing about the film.

The driver unfortunately had an accident weeks later. His truck got flipped and he died. When they went through the wreckage, they uncovered the roll of film from under a front seat. Once they developed the photos? They had 36 pictures, of everything he told people he saw, and what happened during that interview.

The pictures are disturbing and beautiful. They are mostly blurred motion photographs. So don’t expect anything amazing and super effects heavy. For the most part, the smart part of the film. The documentary uses the negative exposures for the more harsher photos, while using the black and white prints from the film for other less violent moments.

It’s an artistic choice and it’s beautiful. You have blurred motion photos of what absolutely are Zombies, attacking people. Blurred trails of hands and arms moving erratically. While hurling themselves toward people. Film negatives showing a male and female zombie in the bushes staring back at him. It’s beautiful stuff. Looking at these, you can tell exactly what it is. But its just blurry enough, and exposed just to the point you can’t pin point it. But you know what it is.

But they didn’t submit the photos because, they felt it was insane. The contents of the photos didn’t make sense. Especially given how they found things in the aftermath. These are genuinely holy shit moments he captured. From the first encounter with patient zero, to going outside his home and taking a photo as a wave of people are captured running around and toward his home.

It’s beautifully setup in the movie that now they are using the photos and setting up a chain of events which they walk us through. We have no idea how it started. But we are told the area he captured and where the crowd came from, what a stretch they called the Savagelands. Where migrant workers would work illegally on fields for crappy pay, cartels were known to have drug runners, and people sort of knew what went on there? But never said anything and avoided it.

So the wave swept over the hills, down into the valley and descended onto the town. His pictures paint a map of his path of travel and escape, moving from one horrific event toward another. Meanwhile the documentary is presenting us the stories of the towns people. Sharing Salazars interview clips as he explains his encounters with the towns people he photographed close to when they died. He photographed a 17 year old who attacked him in his home, he stabbed him 37 times trying to stop him, He came across a man, Ron Templeton. Known as a kind man and founder in the town who was an avid hunter. He took a photo of Ron shooting people from his truck, and caught a photo of the man as he fell to the ground and we can see in the photo. A zombie on fire, approaching Ron, and a very decayed bloody looking form hovering by the back of his truck. Salazar went to the man because he knew him as a hunter, knew he had guns and thought he’d be able to protect him. But they explain somehow, an amazing dead eye hunter who had amazing aim, apparently was firing erratically and still ended up ‘a missing body’

The way this is told, I swear its so damn good. It really is sold as absolutely authentic, and these photos. They are just amazing. It really looks like scenes straight from hell, and I love it. YES I want to see the zombies in their full glory, but I also want to see MORE of them like this. I would sell a basket of puppies just to have one of these photos. They are just spectacular. Scary as hell.

Salazar was running around the edges of town, staying far from the center of town, running from one store to the next. People are claiming he did this as he ran down his victims, photographing them before and after killing them. Sheriff’s believe because it was such a small town and he knew everyone there, knew the place. He knew where to go, knew where people were. According to the cops. The racist white cops. He is a trained assassin, a cartel hitman in their eyes, and he just wiped out a town full of witnesses. For reasons.

While on the other side of this story, you have people who absolutely believe that he was documenting a bizarre and horrific event, running for safety. We have a renowned photographer telling us about the life of a photojournalist and the crazy things you do putting your life in danger, for photos, How that’s what he saw in the photos Salazar took. Even going as far as suggesting if the guy had his equipment with him he would’ve had rolls and rolls of pictures taken. But no. He just used what he had on hand to try and tell a story. A chaotic story of insanity.

Which YES we had to learn how to do too. Taking as little as 3 photos to tell a story, and even 10 photos. That’s exactly what we have with 37 photos here!.

It’s striking and the fact these people used that in their film, that this is what’s telling the story. Man I love it. There IS no found footage in the film. There’s only his photographs, his interview. And the interviews done for the documentary. I freakin love it man.

It’s not until we get to the Putnam family that things get fucked up. Which yes its still possible in this movie. We learn these people, who ran the town church, were good friends with Salazar, and he was great friends with them. They trusted him with a key to their church and home. They helped him out a lot and had a good relationship together. We learn how the family of Duane and Judith Putnam, and their daughter Grace and son. How they came to the town to rebuild and fix the community center, get people connected with one another, and yes. Bring the lord into their lives, and hearts. What good people they were and revered in the community for all the work they’d done. We are being told this to raise the important question. Which is pointed out to us by Lawrence Ross, that if they trusted Salazar to give him a key to their house, why in all the crime scene photos were the doors ripped off their hinges? Which is a damn good and fair point.

It's seriously messed up what happened to this family. Which we only learn, because Duane left a messege on the church’s phone to the pastor. Informing him that only god can judge him, that no one else can judge him. That he can’t find his daughter and he needs to find her. But he can’t. He’s losing his mind on the phone and you can hear it. He begins talking about what he must do and needs to do, that god will understand it, what must be done.

The police theory, is that he saw Salazar killing people and decided to kill his own family with a machete, before turning the blade on himself…

If you are picking up the distinct odor of feces, from a bull. There is a reason for this. Because it’s BULLSHIT!

The photos he took show that he found Duane, yes with a machete. But his family had been infected. He hacked his sons body into pieces, he killed his wife, and ultimately he ended up being attacked himself. As for Grace? Well strap in cuz we aren’t done, and like they reminded us. All 37 people died in this town. Soooo, there’s that.

We learn Salazar ran to the preschool, where all the kids had been, waiting for their parents to pick them up. Which they never did.

Sooo now you have adult zombies killing their kids, and kid zombies killing other kids, and inside the preschool. Hiding, was Grace.

The crime scene photos are, realistically horrifying. You have bloody kids shoes, shirts. Severed limbs. Stuffed animals covered in pools of blood, finding some torn bodies hiding behind curtains, under desk’s. Their teacher also torn apart. It’s gruesome and again, it’s terribly great because the grittiness of the film. They aren’t showing us anything overly gory, they aren’t showing us corpses or limbs, anything. Just well stages crime scene photos. They look absolutely real and that’s why they have the effect they do. It’s a morbid but fun reality that, actual death is far more disturbing, and crime scene photos are always much more gruesome in comparison to anything from horror films. Even Tom Savini admitted long back that where he gets most of his effects from, how he does deaths and such. It’s things that he saw, and fucked him up when he was in Vietnam, and saw people torn apart. It’s. Yeah. It’s messed up.

Which brings us to the apex of Grace’s story. Salazar found her hiding in a house. Which he could not get inside of, it was filling with zombies. She was calling to him from a barred window. He tries desperately to help her. But he has no way to do it. He can’t get her through the bars, she won’t let go of them. He saw these zombies trying to get to her, so he started shooting one photo after the next, hoping the flash would distract them and allow her to escape. But it didn’t. They still came for her.

So he did the only thing he thought of he could do, and offer her. He held Graces hand, and sang to her, as she screamed and cried before the zombies attacked her. He held her hand as she died, and. Dude lost his mind.

It’s pretty messed up, and kudos on the movie getting me to feel real sympathy. I know it’s a movie but damn dude.

On the other side of this, we learn the sad truth that, those who were left in nearby towns. The sheriff and all involved. Absolutely had a strong prejudice to Salazar being Hispanic and a migrant. That they did not care what his photos showed, what anyone else had to say, or the fact he was breaking down and losing it. They all believe there are hundreds more like him out there, waiting to cross the border and kill us. These people are ready to act, and defend their communities, before that happens again. Stating they’d kill any Hispanics that even look questionable just to prevent another ‘Salazar massacre’, We’re told the sheriff was re-elected, his deputies and others involved received promotions, they all worked to over turn any appeal, stop any possible evidence coming in. They are the worst of the worst.

He was executed, buried in Arizona, and even that, a dead immigrant STILL pisses these people off, because they buried him in Arizona, a place he wasn’t a legal citizen of. It’s sadly realistic and that’s far worse a reality than the prospect of zombies. It’s giving us two monsters in a horror film, and only one of those is more likely to be out there, after you, and out to get you. It’s fucked.

But it’s a great damn movie.

Which isn’t done with us yet.

We are learning two very scary, and important things.

First. We learn that those who chose to look into this, and look into what happened, were able to discover a long path of travel headed into the town, and out of the town. Trails that all lead ‘north’ past the secure border. Which we are shown the actual state the border which yes, it’s not exactly the best, and couldn’t keep a fart out. So its implied the town of zombies, are spreading through out. To Utah, To New Mexico. Spreading out across the U.S. Sooo yeah, Zombies are coming for us all, including the racist shitheads.

Good.

The other thing we learn, the final scare of the film in fact.

Again concerns Salazar. The fact that he had bite marks on his hand. From when he’d held Grace’s hand. They said at the end of his 13 hour interview, he suddenly went catatonic and unresponsive. The court drawings they use of him give him darker eyes, he’s not looking good man.

But they still killed him, as quickly as possible, then buried him.

However. It’s reported that his grave was ‘robbed’, the body was missing, and people assumed some ‘good Samaritan’ dug him up and took him off ‘their land.’

Yeaaaah.

No.

Dudes a zombie now, and he’s making zombies.

WHICH. Is the one and only found footage moment we get in the film, and it’s not at all what so ever needed!! It’s the only part that’s really just. Uhg. But I get it. I get it.

We are shown trail cam footage taken from some hikers, and recovered later. As their camp site is overrun with running brain hungry flesh eating zombies. One of whom we believe is Salazar. And with that, our film comes to an end. With a great ending sequence during the credits. As we are shown many Hispanic americans baring tattoos, graffiti and marks of respect depicting Salazar as a savior. The zombies of the town, and the message they took away from this, Of hate blinding people from the truth, and its eventual retribution. It’s great. Fuckin’ amazing and well shot.

The End

I mean this movie. Holy shit balls. I was not expecting any of this. I mean that’s fair, I didn’t know what the hell to expect PERIOD from it. But I absolutely was not ready for racist America meets Zombies and kills an innocent man. I mean that respectfully too. It’s seriously a great and fucked up movie. The zombies SHOULD be the main threat here, but no, they’re the cause of a massacre, but they had nothing to do with the actions taken by the people who found the lone survivor. It’s a good commentary and use of the genre. It’s honestly…hell...

This is by far one of the best, and most original, realistic zombie films I’ve ever seen. They never once. NOT ONCE, use the word zombie. It’s all painted for us, every bit of it is out there for us to see. But they never say it. Even when you think maybe someone, like the author who wrote about his investigation about it, maybe he would be the one to point out it was people that were infected by an unknown virus that caused them to turn zombie like. He wrote a story that for him, depicted the only people capable of doing mass harm with the most efficiency. The police. They had the numbers, the weapons, they could’ve wiped out the town, and pinned it on the only survivor, the only witness to it all. A Hispanic man there without citizenship.

EVEN THEN!!!

The one guy that they painted as getting it and being on the side of ‘This was mother truckin zombies bitches”, is pinning it solely on the cops.

Which I mean I could see if they came into town responding to calls or anything at all about the violence, the shooting, and responded by taking people out. But still! Zombies!!

It’s just, yeah. It’s a story with a lot to say on all fronts, and I love it. Sometimes, especially with Hollywood. They try to make a film with a message, something important to say, or discuss. To put their commentary on, and the film in a majority of cases, comes off as preaching, eye rolling, or in some small cases missing its own point. But to have a film like this, done on a low-budget, directed by three men who also co-wrote it together. And having them turn out a movie with a message, done viscerally well, telling an intriguing and compelling story. Shit. Taking a tired genre that in the minds of a lot of people is so over done and stale. But still keeps getting pumped out. Yet they found a way to make it seem fresh and new again. Major fucking kudos to them. All of them.

This one is going to stick with me for a long time, it absolutely is one of the best found footage films. We aren’t done yet I know, we are ONE away now. But this easily tops the 3 so far I’d put up there, right next to Incantation.

It’s stunningly shot as a documentary news special, they used some real people, playing themselves, the Mural at the end of the film with Salazar looking Christ like above decaying zombies? Is STILL in LA, and hasn’t been covered in graffiti or defaced. That is..amazing. Everything they used to tell their story, and again the photos. Good lord man the photos were works of absolute art. Panning shots of absolute hell on earth, nightmare fuel zombies in the darkness. This stuff was really dark, it was grotesque without being gory, and it was haunting. Absolutely powerful stuff that they just nailed beautifully. Incredible.

Again finding a film like this, doing a full month of found footage. They all have something unique about them, and to their story. How it’s shot, how they tell it. They all strive to be entertaining and tell a memorable story. But a handful of them, find a way to truly be unique, and stand out. This is absolutely a gold standard in that. I really feel the choice of not using zombie, or ghoul, or undead was perfect. It added to the film and was a great choice. We the audience know what it is, what they were and what he faced. But not using it, not having people say it over and over, or having the “Shooting them in the head seems to be what stopped them” bullshit. It’s just so nice. For once. Sort of in the same way how the one good thing the Walking Dead did, was got people to call them Walkers instead of zombies. Which even that now has become a bit over played. Just not having a name for a thing, is somehow far scarier and better it feels. I dig the hell out of it.

Having all this happen in the smallest of rural small towns. Great choice, loved it. Perfect setting for an absolutely horrifying event.

One of the best things from this, and deserves absolutely all the praise and mention. Is Noe Montes, who played Francisco Salazar. This was his second roll. And the guy barely said ANYTHING. But absolutely sold his performance. The raw emotion, the unnerved edge, Delivering every line of dialog absolutely with a terror stained heart. The man sold it and sold it well. I really wish he was in more projects absolutely.

Again shout outs to the trio of co-directors/co-writers, Phil Guidry, Simon Herbert, and David Whelan. They came up with one of the most original zombie horror and found footage films, in a long, long time. To be that scary and raise that kind of fear, without ever showing off the makeup, without giving ‘monsters’. But showing photos of iconic moments, things you absolutely see from the film it was giving us. It just hits different, and in such a satisfying way.

Absolutely this movie deserves its praises, it needs to be seen by more. So, so many more people. I can’t wait to talk about it, and again I find myself utterly grateful for having done an entire month on found footage, expecting it to be nothing but a bunch of terrible garbage, only to end up being a great and pleasant surprise of true hidden gems.

Except for two films, who know which films they are. Shame on you.

So until tomorrow, our final entry into Found Footage February. I’m not saying you should trust the word of a man covered in the blood of dozens of dead people, with a wild crazy eyed stare. But I am saying you should at least hear them out, especially when you have a murdered town, but no bodies. Just saying.