Modern Films Are Rubbish! (Or Are They?)

I found myself watching something called Human Hibachi 2 (2022) the other day.  It was streaming on a Roku channel I had on in the background while I did something else and, for some reason, I ended up watching it.  It was, unfortunately, very much typical of many modern direct-to-streaming micro budgeted horror movies: sadly lacking in just about every department.  In my opinion, at least.  Yet it - and the film it is a sequel to - seems to have a small but devoted cult following online.  I strongly suspect that age plays a big part in how one perceives such things - I'm old enough that my seminal experiences of horror films involved watching Hammer movies on late night TV as a kid in the seventies.  Thanks to BBC2's 'Horror Double Bill' seasons that used to run during the Summer on Saturday nights, not only was I able to run through most of Hammer's Gothics, but also some of their psychological thrillers, most of the Amicus and Tigon back catalogues, older stuff from Universal and RKO, plus a whole load of independently produced stuff, (including a lot of William Castle films and US-Philippines co-productions).  It was quite an education.  Then I discovered Italian horror films.  This was the viewing experience which defined, for me, what horror films should be like - how they should look, how they should be structured, how they should feel.  Even the lowest budgeted, most technically deficient, of these films tended to have a certain sense of style, reflected in their cinematography and production design and most could create, even momentarily, a degree of suspense, eeriness or just unease.

All of which brings us back to Human Hibachi 2 and my negative reaction to the film.  A backwoods cannibal movie shot in 'found footage format is probably the best encapsulation of the film, as it follows a family of cannibals inspired by the first film in the series, itself a found footage suburban cannibal film, (presented as 'real' footage in the sequel).  My first problem with the film is that whole 'found footage' angle - not only has the format had its day, but it is much more difficult to pull off then it looks.  For the modern breed of micro budgeted film makers, it appears to offer a legitimate excuse to present poorly shot on a hand held camera footage that looks like a home movie off as a professional film.  Poor cinematography, poorly framed shots, bad sound and lighting, amateurish acting - it can all be excused by the idea that it is 'meant' to look like that.  Doubtless, for a generation of horror fans brought up on films shot in this style, this is what they think a horror film should look like, explaining the followings they build up.  The problem with Human Hibachi 2 (and many similar films) is that it never convinces as 'found footage' - it simply doesn't look amateur enough.  That's where the skill lies in pulling this style of film off: hitting the balance between that 'amateur film maker' look while keeping it sufficiently professional to remain watchable, (which is why they sometimes employ the framing device of presenting the 'found footage' as part of a faux documentary out together by professional film makers).  Human Hibachi 2 never manages to hit this middle ground.  It all looks slightly too glossy, too smoothly shot and edited to be amateur footage, but not smoothly enough that it looks truly professional.  Instead, it just looks like a poorly lit, shot and acted no-budget movie, without even the ghastly fascination that the average Andy Milligan movie (a 1970s near equivalent standard of film making) brings.

It is also fatally flawed by the omission of a proper framing story - while much of the movie is meant to be 'found footage', even to the extent of the unseen camera operator exchanging dialogue with the participants, there are other sequences where it is unclear who is meant to be filming the participants. A sort of shift from first to third person narration, to use a literary analogy.  Disconcertingly, the style of shooting remains the same, whether it is meant to be 'found footage' or not.  Aside from the 'look' and problems with its narrative structure, the way in which the film executes its 'found footage' format eliminates any opportunity for suspense, tension, or even any decent shock sequences.  It can't even muster any decent gore and the sight of dismembered 'bodies' on screen quickly becomes repetitive, robbing such scenes of any shock value (quite aside from the fact that such scenes have been done to death by horror movies since the eighties).  It all comes over as old hat, a tired theme that isn't carried out here with any originality or verve.  But then, I'm judging Human Hibachi 2 on the basis of my own experience of horror films - I've seen the same subject matter carried out with greater style and energy in various Italian shockers from the eighties, for instance.  But for those who haven't grown up with those experiences, to whom the sort of films I cut my teeth on probably seem like silent cinema, it might well seem original and in keeping with their ideas of what constitutes a 'good' horror film. 

To be fair, while I didn't like Human Hibachi 2, I wouldn't rate it as anywhere near the worst horror film I've ever seen.  Sure, it was, in my opinion, dull, thanks to a complete lack of pace and narrative drive, not to mention the poor acting and lack of characterisation, but at least it was competent in the sense that boom mikes, cables and other equipment didn't keep coming into shot.  Moreover, even though everything was too brightly lit, that did mean that you could at least see what was going on. Also, while I feel that Human Hibachi 2 is all too typical of what I don't like about modern low budget horror movies, it wasn't so bad that it made me want to give up on the whole genre.  Micro budget films can be decently made and even the 'found footage' format, when executed wiith skill, can still be an effective means of story telling.