I watched this fully unaware that it might be fake. Given that fact, I felt all the performances were very believable and even more impressive to me was how well the film mimicked a low-budget, first time documentary. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, they did a great job of being purposefully bad and low-quality in some of the filming techniques...the overuse of voice-over, the injection of the director and their personal history, and the docu footage of the process. Since I believed it to be real, I was riveted up to the chilling and believable end.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The only moment I may have had any suspicion that something was off in the film was the moment in the final scene where the director has chosen to go to a person's house alone at night - a person who has behaved very defensive in their communications and who is involved in a subculture the director believes could be linked to the killers. And the fact that the friend or others involved were seemingly unaware of this until the accidental discovery of this footage on his hard drive.
I only discovered the film was a fake when I decided to google it afterwards...hoping it were fake because of how disturbing it was and believing the perpetrators would have been caught by now it if it were real.
The best way to experience this film is like I did...believing it to be real...which means it can only really be experienced once...or as long as that belief persists. This parallels my experience of The Blair Witch Project to which this film owes everything. Given the supernatural elements of Blair Witch and it's complete lack of a factual basis, the Smiley Face Killers has a greater potential to maintain its creepiness upon multiple viewings.
Assuming the film was made purposefully amateurish to add to its believability, I think this is a well-executed horror film that has yet to receive its due. The only possible detracting factor has been mentioned by others and that is the questionable ethics regarding its effects on the real murders. Hopefully, it draws attention to those investigations, if nothing else.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The only moment I may have had any suspicion that something was off in the film was the moment in the final scene where the director has chosen to go to a person's house alone at night - a person who has behaved very defensive in their communications and who is involved in a subculture the director believes could be linked to the killers. And the fact that the friend or others involved were seemingly unaware of this until the accidental discovery of this footage on his hard drive.
I only discovered the film was a fake when I decided to google it afterwards...hoping it were fake because of how disturbing it was and believing the perpetrators would have been caught by now it if it were real.
The best way to experience this film is like I did...believing it to be real...which means it can only really be experienced once...or as long as that belief persists. This parallels my experience of The Blair Witch Project to which this film owes everything. Given the supernatural elements of Blair Witch and it's complete lack of a factual basis, the Smiley Face Killers has a greater potential to maintain its creepiness upon multiple viewings.
Assuming the film was made purposefully amateurish to add to its believability, I think this is a well-executed horror film that has yet to receive its due. The only possible detracting factor has been mentioned by others and that is the questionable ethics regarding its effects on the real murders. Hopefully, it draws attention to those investigations, if nothing else.