by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Meg Fraser, Bryn Chapman Parish, Keenan Walker
Intro:
… a terrific and exciting tourist horror flick, and a scathing takedown of online clout culture and the strain it puts on real human connection ...
After making her feature script debut writing Molly Haddon’s The Longest Weekend, Jorrden Daley has now stepped into the director’s chair with Welcome Back to My Channel. It premiered last month at SXSW Sydney, and wow, it has been quite a while since found footage horror has looked this good.
Following social media influencer couple Suki (Meg Fraser) and Lee (Bryn Chapman Parish) as they hike through NSW’s Mount Cooee Trail, the plot fits neatly into the framework of tourist horror, where visitors end up in fear of their lives. For the first half of the film, the audience is shown Suki and Lee’s Youtube presence (with mock-up videos showing minor interface errors only noticeable to the terminally online…), their rocky relationship both in-front of and behind the camera, and throughout it all, Daley builds on the characterisation.
Some of it borrows directly from real-life influencers, but in sketching out the core duo, there’s a good balance between the knowing artificiality behind their content and the personal flaws that would make this arrangement appealing to them to begin with. It’s similar to Sissy in presenting influencers as problematic and actual human beings, seeking to help understand rather than just point and laugh at their misfortune. It also keeps up with The Longest Weekend’s eerie effect of feeling like the audience is watching genuine arguments between the characters, whether it’s actively questioning each other’s intentions or gradually breaking down as the horror asserts itself.
The film’s attempts to unsettle and then outright terrify viewers manages a consistent success rate throughout. While the performances and fleshed-out characters certainly boost the overall production, credit is also due for the film craft. While handheld cameras are used prominently early on, mounted GoPros end up being the real hero of the film, as they not only get around the “wait, why are you still filming?” logic hurdle that found footage cinema regularly stumbles on, the first-person perspective from the footage really brings out the tension of the events, especially during the chase scenes. There’s also playful experimentation with the editing from Ashleigh DeGroot and Alana Greig, like a well-executed take on a flashback sequence, and the way that the different camera angles flow together is rather beautiful to see in full.
As the film slowly but sturdily raises the temperature and pulls Suki and Lee closer into the fire (along with Keenan Walker as the intensely dodgy best friend Cassian), the approach to theme never gets lost in the chilling sparks spitting off the kindling. Along with its commentary on social media and the psychology behind it (effectively closing the gap left behind by The Mystery Moose earlier this year), its use of found footage for horror also harkens back to the sub-genre’s progenitor in Cannibal Holocaust. There’s admittedly some chafing in delivering that connective idea of how self-serving (and self-destructive) the need to document everything can become, and how it’s better to leave well enough alone; it does make worthy observations on the nature of artifice and how far it can be bent before the raw and uncomfortable reality behind it breaks through. It’s as much an examination of its own genre as it is of its subject matter.
Welcome Back to My Channel is a terrific and exciting tourist horror flick, and a scathing takedown of online clout culture and the strain it puts on real human connection. It crystalises and even updates the filmmaking techniques that had horror cinema in a chokehold during the days of Paranormal Activity (before screenlife and the more formalist ‘elevated horror’ trends took over), showing that they still pack a hell of a punch when done right. It delivers on thrills and gives viewers ample reason to be invested in the people going through them; that’s well worth a like, sub, and essay-length comment.
