3 out of 5

Directed by: Alex Clegg, Sam Harvey, Spencer Schultz, Beckett Wagner, Isaac Williams

I’ve watched no-budget / low budget straight-to-video films, and the same when it comes to streaming platforms; setting aside considerations of quality, even the no-iest of the no budgets tends to have a couple screens of crew to scroll at the end.

D/V/D-Redacted is my first entry into feature length youtube horror – which I realize is akin to a streaming platform, but the fact that it’s more community sourced versus a “curated” service like Netflix gives it a different vibe. And I recognize I’m coming late to this game (and ignoring that you could piece together series I’ve watched, like Marble Hornets, and consider them films), meaning there are obviously entries before D/V/D that would probably typify what I’m about to say, or completely be opposing examples, BUT: when the credits for this ~50 minute film scrolled, I couldn’t help but be impressed: generally just the writer, director, and camera operator per short, of this 4-short + wraparound anthology. Were there people involved not listed? Maybe. All the same: while you can tell the seams between footage and CG, and this is maybe easily described as “Backrooms the movie,” much more cheaply than the A24 version of that, it’s impressive as all hell that this was put together so slimly, ultimately so effectively, and upload and presented for free y’all*

Anyhow: from YT channel Late Night .99 and directed by a cadre of creatives, D/V/D-Redacted is of the Found Footage genre, and rather wholly – willingly – playing in the liminal horror space established by Youtubers via backrooms content. The framing of a kind of antique hunters reality show as the framing for finding some abandoned DVDs in an up-for-sale lot’s garbage is effective; not new, but it’s not done with any tongue in cheek, nor with any dawdling that suggests the creators here felt they were making the most original film ever. Rather – and why this ultimately works, and is a lot of fun – it’s approached with clear gusto for FF, and just wanting to add to that world. Period. They spin up some lore about an agency making these recordings (on the DVDs) of backrooms-related incidents – people spinning out of reality into liminal spaces of abandoned malls, school, and so on – and that runs into limitations we’ve seen of needing to add some monsters in places to give a jolt where just the creeps might be enough, but again, it’s all just done with such energy and love for the game that it works.

If you’re sensitive to homespun CG effects (which are still pretty great; consider that a huge chunk of the environments are all computer as well), you might roll your eyes at this; I’ll admit I was kind of bummed that it was essentially just backrooms content, but to the D/V/D team’s credit, after the opener does the most generic take on that, we get some interesting creepypasta tweaks on it, and the short runtime guarantees things keep moving.

*pending your access to internet, sigh.