UNAWARE (2010)

Studio:       Cinema Epoch
Director:    Sean Bardin, Robert Cooley
Writer:       Sean Bardin
Producer:  Sean Bardin
Editor:       Richard Allen Crook

Review Score:

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Summary:

While vacationing with his girlfriend, Joe Anderson discovers a secret hidden in his grandfather’s barn that may be related to the Roswell UFO crash of 1947.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

July 16, 2010 – Joe and Lisa record their vacation getaway to Joe’s grandfather’s house in Texas. Joe’s parents died in a car accident in August 2000 and his grandfather, Roy Anderson, is his only remaining family. As the visit was intended to be a surprise, no one is home when the couple arrives. Joe unlocks the gate anyway and finds a key that lets them inside Roy's house. A note on the door says that his grandparents will not return until Sunday. The couple tours the property, including a garage where Roy has restored an Oldsmobile Cutlass.

Lisa goes to a video store and rents “Roman Holiday.” Joe sets up the camera in the kitchen and records his marriage proposal when Lisa returns. After eating, Joe tells Lisa that he wants to explore Roy’s barn because he was always forbidden to go in there as a child. Lisa is uninterested. Joe goes to the barn alone and hears a humming noise coming from inside. He returns to the house for Lisa and convinces her to break into the barn with him. The humming noise comes from some kind of active radio amongst Roy’s military containers. Lisa wants to leave and Joe decides to return the next day. Back at the house, the TV is out and Joe tries to fix it. Outside, he discovers a short, but is unable to do anything.

July 17, 2010 – Eventually, Joe and Lisa return to the barn. In a filing cabinet, they discover Top Secret papers referencing Majestic 12. Above the strange radio are newspaper clippings about the 1947 Roswell UFO crash. The couple then uses the laptop in the house to research Majestic 12 and Roswell. They listen to an old radio broadcast about the flying saucer material not arriving as scheduled at Wright-Patterson Air Force base in Ohio. Joe and Lisa go back to the barn and find the body of an extraterrestrial in one of the containers. They run back to the house in fear. While discussing what to do, strange lights appear through the window. Joe investigates, but finds nothing. Later, a live alien is briefly seen behind the couch when Joe stands up to turn the camera off for the night.

July 18, 2010 – Joe calls the FBI. A man later arrives that they presume to be an FBI agent. He identifies himself as Larsen. He refuses to investigate the barn and leaves seemingly without regard for Joe’s claims. That night, the couple decides to leave and Joe returns everything to where he found it in the barn. When he returns to the car, Joe discovers that he lost his keys in the barn. Lisa goes after him to the barn and sees an alien running around the yard. While they hide, they see another alien and start running. Bright lights appear on the property and Lisa is taken by an alien before the lights ascend into the sky. A bloody Joe recovers and sees a car pulling into the driveway. Joe assumes it is Roy, but it turns out to be Larsen and another man in black. Joe is then taken down from behind. A post-credits shot shows the camera looking up into a blue sky near a pile of trash on July 19, 2010.

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Review:

The distance from Alpha Centauri to Earth is only slightly longer than the journey “Unaware” took from its 2010 debut to its quiet arrival on home video in March of 2013.  Beginning in late 2010, the film’s PR efforts primed the pump of anticipation with press releases and festival circuit appearances that put a distinct blip on “found footage” fans’ radars.  Only briefly peeking out of obscurity over the next two and a half years, the film’s continued absence almost lent credibility to the marketing angle of a government conspiracy suppressing the footage.

Curiously, the movie’s buzz machine was strangely quiet when the DVD finally hit the market.  With nary a peep about the release on any major horror news website, “Unaware” landed as clandestinely as a flying saucer full of greys in the backwoods of an Arkansas swamp.

Ask the most jaded horror film fan what the genre needs more of, and “found footage” will certainly not be at the top of that list.  But while “haunted asylum” and “lost in the woods” plotlines flood the sub-genre like Niagara Falls, alien encounters are a seldom seen theme in horror mockumentaries.  “Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County” (aka “The McPherson Tape”) may be the only one, and that was released in 1998.  Now well into the post-Blair Witch age of “found footage,” the timing seems opportune for an updated take on a backyard extraterrestrial discovery, and “Unaware” takes the bait.  With the film accessible at last, the question can now be asked if its conspicuous absence had less to do with imaginary government censorship, and more to do with money-minded distributors steering clear of an albatross.

Joe and Lisa are an average young couple.  Having rooted his video camera out of the closet, Joe brings it along for a Texas-style vacation where he plans to drop in unannounced at his grandfather’s remote ranch house.  Unfortunately, grandpa Roy is gone for the weekend.  Undeterred, Joe finds the spare key and invites himself and his honey inside for the weekend.  And that mysterious barn out back that grandpa never let Joe near as a kid?  Maybe it is time to sneak a peek at what is inside.

Seemingly every “found footage” review I have written includes a reminder that the first hour of such films usually risks being a snooze fest, and this movie cannonballs into the deep end of that whirlpool.  “Unaware” takes home top dishonors as the most uneventful first two acts ever presented in “found footage.”  The fault for this yawn inducing intolerability rests with the torturously beige pairing of the two leads.

Average characters are fine for relating to.  Depicting their average daily experiences is not fine for entertainment.  While Joe and Lisa are no firebrands, it is their weekend that is excruciatingly dull.

In the most unromantic marriage proposal of all time, Joe goes down on one knee and pops the question in his grandparents’ kitchen.  As if that location choice is not unmemorable enough, what follows is a sequence so pathetic that any self-respecting woman would have every right to say, “that’s it?” and storm off in a fuming cloud of miffed silence.  Lisa accepts, the couple kisses, and then Joe says, “I’m hungry.”  Luckily, Joe has prepared a celebratory meal for his fiancée that consists of toothpick skewered turkey breast slices.  Because if anything says, “I love you,” it’s deli meat.  Lisa must be accustomed to disappointment because when Joe asks if he “did good” with his setup, Lisa giddily exclaims, “you did!” even though Joe also forgot to light the two candles sitting between them.

Previously, Joe sent Lisa to the video store to acquire entertainment for the evening.  Ignoring how she knew her way around town when Joe was taking her there for the first time, Lisa returns with “Roman Holiday.”  A black-and-white movie is appropriate, seeing as how grandpa Ray still has the world’s oldest tube television.  Watching the couple watch the movie would have been more entertaining than what they actually do, which is hula-hooping, trying to fix the satellite TV connection, and inspecting a rusted bathtub.

Even the most disappointing “found footage” entries shoehorn forced scares simply to keep the audience awake.  Hitting or nearly hitting something with the car.  A loud crash or thump that turns out to be an animal.  Something.  Anything.  The first time something creepy finally appears in “Unaware,” I had to rewind the too brief moment twice because I missed it two times.  I would have missed it completely if not for the music sting that tipped off its appearance.

There is a delicate line between showing too much and showing not enough.  “Unaware” is in no danger of even touching that line because it is so deeply entrenched in the camp of showing almost nothing at all.  When Joe and Lisa do discover the secret of grandpa’s barn, their first instinct is to run away from an inanimate object.  Not only an unbelievable reaction, it fails to sufficiently reward the curious audience who patiently endured the boredom of Joe and Lisa’s relationship to arrive at an under-delivered moment of suspense.

To maximize any enjoyment of this movie, do not watch the trailer.  “Unaware” contains only a scant few seconds of what alien abduction fans want to see, and nearly the entirety of that footage is included in the trailer.  If you have seen the trailer, you have seen most of the thrills “Unaware” has to offer.

“Unaware” is unsatisfying on more than one level.  From the dull couple to the laughable actions of the men in black, character behavior is either boring or unbelievable.  The premise that makes the movie appealing is delivered in underwhelming portions.  And anyone hungry for extraterrestrial chills will leave “Unaware” still starving.  Unless the adrenaline shot needed to recover from the boredom qualifies as nourishment.

Review Score:  30

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