Video X is a fine demonstration of the fact that being the best is not quite as important as being the first.
In 1999, The Blair Witch Project exploded into the public consciousness as a brilliant marketing scheme actually had some people wondering if the story of film footage from a missing trio of college students was real or not. The film and hand-held video was shot by the supposed students themselves as they encountered a mysterious evil in the woods and was recovered after they disappeared. It took the concept of the mockumentary and applied it to deadly serious horror.
In 2003, Video X came along claiming to be the hand-held video shot by a white trash loser and his underage girlfriend as they embarked on a cross country killing spree. And it's better than The Blair Witch Project. But its very excellence only emphasizes the limitations of this new genre.
When I say Video X is better than The Blair Witch Project, I don't necessarily mean it's more entertaining. I mean it does a better job of abiding by and fulfilling the concept of "real video" storytelling. While Blair Witch was obviously edited together, Video X looks exactly like someone taping things with a single video camera over the course of several days. The camera gets turned on and off, it gets passed from one person to another, often the camera isn't even shooting the people who are speaking. If Blair Witch was the idea, Video X is the realization.
And even with the restrictions of making the footage look and sound and feel as close to reality as possible, Video X does a better job of storytelling. Dwayne (Joey Graham) and Darla Jean (Michelle Moretti) aren't pawns moved through the film by the plot. They start out with a simple foolish dream, to run away and make a new life for themselves, but they make the worst possible choices running after that dream. Through it all, as the killings move from accidental to intentional, as the none-too-bright lovebirds hook-up with an older ex-con who sends them further down into the darkness without realizing what he's truly doing, Dwayne and Darla Jean remain real people who think and act and feel in real ways. Video X asks us to consider that, sometimes, the worst sorts of evil can start out with relatively harmless stupidity and one terrible mistake.
It's impossible to know if Video X would have become the same sort of box office phenomenon as The Blair Witch Project. Its true-to-life crime drama might not have resonated with the public like supernatural terror did. But if Video X had come first, it would have definitely caused at least a minor sensation as a bold new direction in film-making. But it didn't come first, which means the audience has already seen the whole "is this real or not" angle. No matter how genuine the video footage seems, you can't give the film the full suspension of disbelief it needs. Even though in most respects it's a better film and a better story, the conceit of making you wonder if it might be real is so central to the appeal of the film that is can't completely work without it. It's like buying a used car. The first time you do it, the salesman can seem awfully convincing. But the second time you buy a used car, no matter how persuasive the salesmen is, you just can't believe him like you did the first guy.
I don't mean to sell Video X short. It is still entertaining, though like all these hand held video films, those with motion sickness should beware before watching. But it proves that no matter how well made one of these movies is, it will never be able to recapture the "is it or isn't it" doubt that this genre needs to be completely successful as art.
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