21 DAYS (2014)

Studio:       Gravitas Ventures
Director:    Kathleen Behun
Writer:       Kathleen Behun
Producer:  Kathleen Behun, Jessica Villegas Lattuada, Fernando Barreda Luna
Stars:     Max Hambleton, Whitney Rose Pynn, Mickey River

Review Score:

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Summary:

Three friends filming a ghost hunting documentary attempt to be the first persons to stay inside a reportedly haunted house for 21 consecutive days.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Fillmore, CA – Accompanied by his girlfriend Shauna Roberts and their mutual friend Kurt, Jacob Anderson begins interviewing locals about the reportedly haunted house at 127 Cedar Road for a ghost hunting documentary. From local historian Clarice Johnsen, Jacob and the others learn that since being built on an Indian burial ground in 1890, no one has been able to stay inside the house for longer than 21 days. All previous tenants reportedly left without taking any of their belongings and all mirrors inside the home were always found covered. Supposedly, the haunting demon follows residents to wherever they move next to prevent them from telling their stories of what happened.

Bob and Carolyn Warner lived in the home in 1977. Their daughter Tricia went suddenly mute while living there. Their son Cory later died in a car accident while on his way to be interviewed by a reporter.

Lisa Thompson’s nine-year-old son Jonathan also went mute while living in the house. Jacob, Kurt, and Shauna try interviewing Lisa, but she angrily chases them off her property. Shauna unsuccessfully tries interviewing Carolyn Warner over the phone.

Two Native American tribesmen report that the home was built on evil land sitting over a vortex to the underworld. It takes 21 days for a demon from that realm to fully possess a human, which is why tenants must escape within three weeks. Covering mirrors keeps demons from using them as portals to enter this world.

Jacob plans to stay in the house for three weeks as the focus of his documentary. A representative for the bank that owns the property gives everyone a brief tour. Kurt and Shauna search for the Indian burial site outside and find odd dreamcatchers placed in the ground. Jacob removes the covers from every mirror. Jacob also has carpenters seal he, Kurt, and Shauna inside the house to prevent them from leaving.

Day 1 – Surveillance cameras are set up throughout the house along with a time-lapse still camera in an adjacent barn. Toys left by previous residents are placed throughout the home and barn as trigger objects for possible supernatural spirits.

Day 3 – An EMF detector spikes during the night. Paranormal activity wakes everyone while they sleep.

Day 5 – Kurt notices that a stuffed animal placed in the barn changes positions in consecutive still photos. Shauna finds a handprint on an inside window above the kitchen sink.

Day 9 – Shauna finds a box of photos depicting previous residents, including the Samuels Family from 1890. The photos are covered with bloody cult symbols that Shauna recognizes are the same shapes as the dreamcatchers she and Kurt found outside. Shauna researches the symbol and discovers that it represents the underworld. Kurt records an EVP in the barn with a ghostly voice saying, “Shauna, come play with us.” Paranormal activity continues, including a scythe mysteriously vanishing from the barn and reappearing inside the house.

Day 16 – Jacob, Kurt, and Shauna investigate strange noises upstairs and briefly see people reflected in a mirror. Bloody symbols are discovered on the photos pinned to their project corkboard. Jacob and Kurt get into a physical fight over their growing frustration. Troubled by Jacob’s increasingly aggressive behavior, Shauna begins sleeping in Kurt’s room.

Day 18 – Having not spoken to each other in days, Jacob tries reconciling with Kurt and Shauna. More paranormal activity occurs that night. Blood-covered photos of the three friends are found pinned to the board. Jacob convinces Kurt to burn the pictures so Shauna does not see them.

Day 19 – Jonathan Thompson appears on the doorstep while everyone sleeps.

Day 20 – Kurt reviews the footage of the boy on the doorstep and sees that he was somehow able to enter the house. Shauna calls Clarice Johnsen to tell her they saw Jonathan Thompson and learns that Jonathan and his mother Lisa died in a car accident around the time Jonathan supposedly visited the house. As paranormal activity escalates with moving objects and bloody symbols throughout the house, Kurt demands to leave. Jacob pulls a gun and forces the others to stay until the end.

While Kurt and Shauna hide in the kitchen waiting for morning to come, a ghostly presence visits Jacob in his bedroom. Kurt and Shauna see a vision of Tricia Warner in a rocking chair. With furniture flying around them, Shauna calls for help on her phone. Shauna calls Carolyn Warner to report seeing the woman’s daughter and learns that Tricia Warner died one hour earlier. Carolyn advises Shauna to replace the covers on the mirrors.

The power goes out. Kurt tries unsuccessfully to break a window. Shauna and Kurt try covering the mirrors. Looking at the surveillance camera monitors, they see ghosts in the bedroom with Jacob.

Possessed and armed with a scythe, Jacob confronts Kurt and supernaturally breaks his neck. Shauna tries hiding under a bed and praying, but is pulled away by a group of ghosts.

The bank rep arrives in the morning with cameraman Carl. While Carl investigates the scene with his camera, he removes the cover from a mirror, revealing ghosts standing behind him.

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Review:

The house standing at 127 Cedar Road in Fillmore, California is so haunted that no one has been able to live inside it longer than 21 days.  Since its construction on an Indian burial ground in 1890, terrified families have repeatedly fled in fright, leaving their possessions behind and their mouths zipped shut for fear of what a demon might do if they ever told their tales.

Enter intrepid paranormal investigator and aspiring young documentarian Jacob Anderson.  Accompanied by his girlfriend Shauna, their friend Kurt, and a whole host of cameras and ghost detecting equipment, including an EMF reader with the most annoying audio alarm imaginable, Jacob plans to seal the trio inside the cursed home for three consecutive weeks and dig to the bottom of the supernatural urban legend once and for all.

As can be guessed by the setup and the summary, “21 Days” cribs the crux of its content from “Paranormal Activity” (review here) and “The Blair Witch Project” (review here), with a healthy portion of “The Amityville Horror” filling in the backstory for good measure.  By the filmmaker’s own admission, “21 Days” is a project born from frustrated necessity to produce something economically feasible and commercially viable.  Even with that goal motivating the inspiration, and a no-deviation approach to the “found footage” template, “21 Days” nevertheless gets the basic job done as a thriller with more effort onscreen than most movies of its ilk.

The film is formulaic to be sure, but it delivers precisely what is expected.  An opening full of candid conversations with local townspeople.  Escalating tension driving wedges between core characters.  Even classic clichés such as creepy old dolls and empty rocking chairs creaking find their way into frame.  Yet there is earnestness to the employment that while nothing has a fresh scent, everything is executed with sincere intent to entertain.  None of the beats border on bloated either, with the runtime cycling through the three-week period in fast fashion: Days 1, 3, 5, 9, 16, and then 18 through to the end.

While the production itself never comes across as half-assed or careless, not every element is entirely up to snuff.  This is a narrative designed for justifying cinematic structure instead of rational story sense.  For instance, sidekick Kurt sets up live surveillance cameras throughout the house, but only a still camera to take time-lapse photos in the adjacent barn.  It makes no sense for a paranormal investigation to shortchange that single camera, except to design dread into moments where objects inexplicably move from one still photo to the next so as to be subtly scary and not give away too much to the viewer.

Scratch deeper into the logic and similar occurrences continue to be uncovered.  During a frantic finale featuring as much shaky camerawork and shrill screaming as it does suspense, Kurt and Shauna turn to their cellphone for help.  Call #1 sensibly goes to 911.  Call #2 goes to previous tenant Carolyn Warner, a woman who refused an earlier interview request with a firm “I’m not interested” attitude.  It would make real-world sense to call a parent, friend, or even the person who let them into the house in the first place to come to the rescue.  It only makes movie sense to call someone who can provide eleventh hour exposition and clues about the haunting.

When each character is given a generic last name like Warner, Roberts, Anderson, Thompson, or Johnsen (sic), it is clear that certain details only received a surface coat of paint before everyone moved on to meatier matters.  These are the kinds of things given shoulder shrugs behind the scenes when you are shooting 93 pages of script in a 10-day schedule.  Though this lack of more thorough creativity is what keeps “21 Days” at a level of exceptional mediocrity instead of simply exceptional.

If you see only one horror film this year, then you probably are not much of a horror fan to begin with.  In that case however, “21 Days” stands a solid chance of giving you goosebumps and raising your nape hairs as it features the style of scares that work exceptionally well on anyone susceptible to loud noises, or who experiences this kind of movie infrequently.  The film hits creeptastic tones and strikes unnerving chords with plenty of jolts for the easily startled.  The trouble for those of us who have already feasted on our fair share of the format is that it is too much of a bother to be excited about another first-person fright flick set in a haunted house on an Indian burial ground, no matter how competently it might have been created.

If “Paranormal Activity” and its countless successors/imitators were never made, then “21 Days” might stand out as more than a movie fated to be misremembered as a Sandra Bullock vehicle with the passage of time.  Of course, if “Paranormal Activity” did not exist, then neither would “21 Days.”

Fun Fact: One of the film’s executive producers is La Toya Jackson.  Yes, that La Toya Jackson.  However, she came aboard after the project was completed and thus did not have input on the creation or production sides of the film.

Review Score:  65

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