Found footage
Directed by: Jaques Edeline, Oliver Mauldin
Starring: Austin Jankins, Janna Jankins
Synopsis: A real #vanlife couple were on an adventure to renovate an abandoned farm in middle-of-nowhere Mississippi. Cameras blazing, they chronicled their project on social media. But the farm was full of disturbing surprises, especially at night.
I remember in 2014 or so when found footage movies seemed to dominate the horror landscape. They took a lot of flack back then for being lazy and derivative. A lot of modern found footage seems to be based around content creators. Are they still derivative? Yeah, a little but there’s still a whole lot of mileage you can get out of these stories.
#missingcouple is another found footage movie based on content creators. This time around we follow the stories of not one, but two youtube/social media channels in an interwoven story.
The first channel is Austin and Janna, they’re a lovely husband and wife who buy a farm and chronicle their attempts to renovate it and start a new life. They are the titular #missingcouple.
The second channel is Found Persons Report, started by a friend of theirs who sets out to retrace their steps and find out what happened to them.
The best found footage movies are slow burns that drip feed you information and this one follows that formula expertly. The early videos of Austin and Janna (with their dog Arlo) are endearing and they generally seem like the kind of channel that people would actually watch.
The found persons report investigation into their disappearance is also pretty solid and the actor (I cannot find his name online, the IMDB credits are awful for this one) does a good job of selling the story.
Austin and Janna act intelligently enough as things start to get weird around them that their decisions won’t have you throwing your hands in the air in disbelief. They investigate the history of their land and their house and stumble from one mystery to another along the way.
I had zero expectations going into this but found myself really enjoying it. If you like slow burn found footage movies where the characters aren’t complete morons, check this one out. You won’t be disappointed.