PARANORMAL DIARIES: CLOPHILL

"The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination ..." - H.P. Lovecraft.

June 2010, a semi-detached house in the small Hertfordshire village of Hoddesdon. This is the base from which the paranormally curious Craig (Craig Stovin) and his partner kiss goodbye to their daughters and set off to meet with documentary filmmaker Kevin (Kevin Gates) to investigate a local myth.

The myth in question is that of nearby village Clophill's church, St Mary's. We learn from onscreen interviews with various historians (all genuine) that the church became dilapidated in Centuries gone by, and was eventually condemned when its lead roofing was stolen. It has stood as a ruin ever since, covered in graffiti and rumoured to be the setting of a black mass during the 1960s. Now locals fear to tread near it.

Recently spooked Craig and enthusiastic Kevin - bolstered by footage he'd been sent by a group of University students exhibiting unexplained shapes shifting during a night shoot on the church site - have assembled a small crew, including affable but cynical cameraman Mark (Mark Jeavons), producer Michael (Michael Bartlett) and glamorous interviewer Criselda (Criselda Cabitac), in the hope of venturing out to the remote, abandoned church in search of the truth behind its legendary 'haunted' status.

"Day 1": the crew set off driving in the direction of Clophill, filled with anticipation for their intended 3-day visit to its decrepit landmark. Upon their arrival in the village they interview a number of residents (again, these all appear to be authentic interviewees) about their take on the local myth. Tales of drunken vicars, scary rumours spread to warn off intruders and so on ensue.

Graduating to a daylight inspection of the church grounds, the team find a ram's horn and precious little else. But they do continue to interview the locals - and are rewarded with tales of ghostly sightings, sinister rituals and unexplained occurrences. Archive photographs help illustrate these points on occasion.

A scout of the area after dark brings about the first use of the dreaded 'nightcam' - but it's okay, there's no shaky terror or clichéd jumps in the night here.

"Day 2" leads to more interviews, seemingly innocuous tours of the ruins and occasional archive footage. Interspersed all the while by talking head-style interviews with security folk, documentarians, more residents ... all of whom conspire to build a feeling of absolute dread towards the decaying building.

But still, little of genuine threat occurs.

Until...

PARANORMAL DIARIES had my alarm bells ringing upon first sight of its title and cover. But it's actually a fairly canny mix of genuine documentary footage and 'found footage' type drama. Even the latter ingredients are quite subtly played out. Indeed, while it rarely flags, there may be some who find this too slow - co-directors Bartlett and Gates are in no rush to deliver their shocks. Instead they build the atmosphere insidiously, allowing for a first hour of hyper-realism before leaking in the creepiness during the final 20 minutes. If Ti West did a faux documentary about filmmakers investigating a horrific urban legend, it may well look and play out a lot like this.

In fairness, and oddly enough, the slow build-up is more engrossing than the more obvious final third. Up until then, a tired sub-genre has been given a fresh lease of life: suddenly, about 70 minutes into proceedings, conventions takes over and we're in overly familiar territory until the end. The one consolation is that Gates and Bartlett keep these scenes sedate enough to fit in with their cool earlier scenes.

A small, seemingly personal film, DIARIES does work if you allow it to. It's not a masterpiece as some have claimed, but it does manage to get the mind ticking over with its authentic account of a very real location and classic small-town myth. It's just a shame that the academics carry more weight than the actors in a dramatic sense.

PARANORMAL DIARIES comes to UK DVD courtesy of our friends at Second Sight.

It looks very good in this 16x9 widescreen presentation. Warm colours and natural flesh-tones are in order for the most part. There are the occasional blown-out scenes, as well as some that are shot in deliberate soft focus: this is a 'found footage'/docu-horror flick, after all, so it's not unexpected that the aesthetics are set to lo-fi standards now and then. On the whole though, the film looks very slick, clean and detailed here.

English audio is provided in 2.0 and 5.1 mixes. Both are beneficial, though the keen balance and robust guttural power of the latter has the edge, come the set-piece scenes.

The disc opens to an animated main menu page which plays instantly on the 'found footage' formula. From there, a static scene-selection menu allows access to the film via 16 chapters.

Bonus features commence with a decent, fact-filled commentary track from Gates. He's a likeable host who keeps the chat fluent, and fills us in on the bits of his film that are based in fact, the characters who play themselves, the fact that the shoot worked on an itinerary rather than a script, etc. Clearly, a lot of research and work was put into the film's lengthy production (THE ZOMBIES DIARIES 2 was made in the middle of this film's schedule).

A second commentary track is lighter on finer details but perhaps more entertaining. It comes courtesy of Gates, along with co-stars Stovin and Cabitac. Again, there's little dead air during this alternate talk. There's some inevitable repetition between tracks, but this one delves more into anecdotal fare - not just about the shoot, but about the locations and their histories.

23 minutes of widescreen deleted scenes look and sound on a par with the main feature. They add extra exposition and background details, but there's nothing here that leaves the completed film lacking. In fact, the scariest thing about this footage is that PARANORMAL DIARIES could've potentially been half an hour longer than it is.

The film's original trailer rounds off the extras, clocking in at 86 seconds in length. It comes complete with quotes from various genre publications claiming that the movie "redefines the genre" and so on...

Do we need PARANORMAL DIARIES on our supermarket shelves, next to the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY franchise, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT films and all their collected offshoots? It's debatable, certainly.

But, taken on its own merit (and ignoring the saturation of this particular sub-genre), DIARIES intrigues with its novel approach to what could've been an entirely redundant exercise. Watch it before you dismiss it.

Second Sight's DVD serves the film well.

Review by Stuart Willis