The Outwaters (Movie Review)

Screened as part of the 2022 Chattanooga Film Festival

Found-footage movies have evolved to a significant degree since their inception. The complexity and scope often going to great lengths to make them feel bigger and bigger than the medium was originally intended. Then, you get a movie the The Outwaters, which embraces the old and the new, but without the benefit of deep pockets to bolster the special effects and provide the audience with the expected trailer moneyshots. You might say Robbie Banfitch’s cosmic nightmare is a “back to the roots” style of found-footage horror, but with ambition that is uncommon in the subgenre.

Simply put The Outwaters is about 4 friends who venture out into the Mojave Desert with the intention to camp and shoot some footage for a music video when they find themselves entangled in a horrific cosmic nightmare beyond their comprehension. Full stop—cause to try and explain more wouldn’t just be spoilery, but a Herculean task in and of itself.

It opens with a 9-1-1 call featuring bizarre screams and showing title cards of all the characters as “last seen on” dates before flashing text explaining that the following footage was entered into as evidence and compiled onto three memory cards chronological order. Card one is essentially all getting to know the characters and their dynamics as they set off to the desert. Card two sees them getting to their destination and encountering some bizarre things here and there, giving hints to what may lie ahead. Card three…chaos.

Now, when I say this is a  “back to the roots” style of found footage horror, it’s intended to conjure the original intent of the found-footage thesis. Before every stooge who picked up a camera was meant to capture and perfectly frame every bit of action. When viewers would have to use every ounce of their imagination to fill in the blanks of what’s happening in the darkness. The Outwaters is not at all interested in giving its viewers answers to exactly what in the unholy hell is happening during its final hour. Nor does it feel like it owes you a plethora of perfectly lit shots so you can see every single thing that's happening. It’s small flashlight sphere giving you a glimpse into the madness is going to be a large part of what’s polarizing for this one. It has all the feel of “we found this footage and have no clue what to make of it” and in a lot of ways that’s one of the refreshing aspects of it, in addition to it being about a bunch of people that accidentally stumbled upon unimaginable danger instead of actively seeking it out.

The level of cosmic horror The Outwaters shoots for should be well outside of its means in terms of budget. It’s easy to see that the production had limited means to accomplish some lofty goals, and yet it works. The closest thing to trying to convey the ambition is to think of it like a Benson and Moorehead otherworldly found-footage movie with some grody body horror sprinkled on top—picture the brief visions of hell from Event Horizon. That expansion of the scope is more or less the trajectory of modern found-footage. Trying to be something bigger than just capturing horror on a small scale.

As such, Banfitch embraces the chaotic raw footage style of old-school found-footage while injecting it with steroids and thinking bigger without losing the raw imperfect feel of the visuals, and with an outstanding sense of the importance of sound. That’s what set The Outwaters apart from most in the subgenre. It doesn’t always feel like a complete success as some of this “evidence” feels like it could have been lost without hindering the overall imagined investigation. Still, The Outwaters delivers a hefty WTF punch to the senses that’s sure to be divisive, but many will leave with a lingering memory of the visceral unflinching cosmic horror onslaught in the film’s final hour.