This story is a fictional documentary. Very creepy in the way the story builds, but then when it's time to explain what happened, there's nothing. Do these events make sense? We'll never know. How disappointing.
Like the podcast "Serial," this film attempts to uncover what really happened one night when the residents of a small town in Arizona on the Mixican border are massacred, mutilated, and disappeared. It focuses on determining the involvement--guilty or innocent--of the lone survivor, arrested for the apparent crimes and railroaded toward a death sentence.
Not really a mockumentary--it's not making fun of documentaries--but a documentary style of storytelling to recount a fake event. Not really found footage but found photos. The content, documentary style, is mainly interviews with law enforcement, journalists, and photography experts. The discussion is illustrated with clips from a jail house confession and photos taken of the event as it unfolded. A 3-D drawing of the town shows what occurred when and where. The photos are unclear, adding to the mystery of what happened. Likewise, the survivor is alternatingly uncommunicative and incoherent, open to interpretation of what really happened and how he was involved.
For this style of storytelling--where you're told what happened, not shown--the film is pretty good. Tension builds as everyone interprets the vague evidence according to their own biases. As the documentary tries to unravel what really happened, each revelation is even more horrific. I kept thinking, "I can't wait to find out what really caused this!" Unfortunately, I never did. My rating is 8 for most of the film but 2 for the ending.
