Scare Campaign (2016)

Sex :
Violence :
Director Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes
Writers Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes
Starring Meegan Warner, Ian Meadows, Olivia DeJonge, Josh Quong Tart, Patrick Harvey, Cassandra Magrath
Genre Psycho
Tagline Careful Who You Prank
Country
Scare Campaign (2016)

Review

"This is going to be epic" - Suzy

Television show Scare Campaign has hit the highs over the last 5 years with a mix of traditional scares captured on hidden cameras, unfortunately ratings have been dropping recently as audiences get bored with the show contents and the emergence of more extreme online competition. Scare Campaign is looking passed it's used by date and the Network are considering their options. Marcus, the director of the show, has an ace up his sleeve however, he plans to bring a rather odd dude to an abandoned mental asylum and scare the crap out of him with ghostly happenings.

Naturally things don't go as expected as we learn the "subject" of the latest prank is an ex-patient of the same asylum they are filming in, and the dude has some serious mental issues. With the body count seemingly to mount as actors and crews are culled Emma discovers that their subject might not be the one being pranked. However Marcus doesn't have the full story, there's another film crew on site with a completely different attitude to how a prank should work. Strap yourself in folks, this one has more twists than a sack full of kittens thrown in a river.

Okay lets pop the subtext here and we can move on to the nitty gritty, the metal meeting the flesh, the heebie jeebies, the dark genre hoodoo that the Cairnes Bros do. With television continuing to see its market share eroded as potential viewers move onto other avenues of entertainment, hey call out to streaming services - actually watching one now, the rise in online shows is staggering in its implications. About 97% of the televised horror I watch either arrives on disc or gets streamed on Netflix etc., hey who needs hour long episodes interspersed with adverts for fast food or whatever the gormless arseholes are currently screaming about. Now one of the things I've noticed, bear with me folks, is the streamed shows are far more out there than mainstream television can hope to be, given the advertising income imperative. So we get a lot more naked fun time and definitely a lot more in the claret and horror notions, commercial television is getting stale in comparison. And that in a nutshell is the subtext of Scare Campaign, they need to take the show to the next level to halt ratings slide but can never match an online medium that has zero in the way of oversight, art reflecting life folks.

Overall Scare Campaign works by constantly throwing a twist at the viewer, just when things are reaching a crescendo of blood drenched terror, something will pop up taking us in a new direction. Exactly who is getting pranked here, and when do we get back to the normal ebb and flow will have you questioning what you are seeing constantly. The movie is one of those experiences that is multi layered and looking to wickedly get under your expectations as a viewer, don't trust the horror tropes the Cairnes Bros are saying, we'll use them to mask the next twist. This isn't to say things head off into surreal David Lynch counting angels on the head of a pin material, the Bros are too well grounded to force us to sit through that sort of pseudo-artistic schlock.

What it boils down to is Marcus' old fashion scare tactics against the rise of gorenography in the new social Medias. Marcus' boss Vicki, able played by Sigrid Thornton who also drops a C-nuke at one stage, understands Scare Campaign must up the ante and go for something a lot more explicit or risk descending into a mediocre yesterday abyss that no one will remember as the online shows, here explicit show by the Masked Freaks who have cameras mounted on almost medieval tools of destruction, eroded the audience. So we have an indictment of the low attention span after the next shock brigade that have unfortunately lowered expectations of what horror can achieve. Ironically Scare Campaign underlines this concept by showing the sort of violence that the low brow get off on apparently.

The Cairnes Bros get this one happening right from the get go, talking a six off the first ball of the innings as we would say down here in Paradise. We are in a hospital late night, and as is usual in horror wards there isn't many folk about beyond the newly employed dude manning the desk through the witching hour. Naturally things start to go slightly insane as we seem to be dealing with a revenant of the dark and spooky Samara kind. Unfortunately our recent employee has packed some firepower with him and things are looking dicey as he decides he isn't going quietly into that dark night. Got to say the Directors have this scene pumping, the atmosphere and tension is heavy and almost overbearing. If you want to know what happens next you are going to have to get a view of the movie, we aren't an answer bureau over here, you are going to have to do some of the work for yourself.

Which I guess is as good a lead into the gore portion of the show as anything else is likely to be, and friends and neighbours the Gore hounds are going to be snarling and snapping tonight, this movie doesn't hold back on the claret flying around. Certainly there's a sense, or some would be Critics would have it as such, that this movie is headed into Slasher territory, you know creative kills etc., but although we do get the kills we are definitely not talking a slasher here. If a continued body count shown on screen isn't your meat and three veg then I would be seeking alternative fare, perhaps in the Disney aisle. And just to let you know, the deaths are going to escalate in intensity and savagery, there's a mean streak here though it doesn't engulf the audience as an Eli Roth epic would, more over it pushes us to what we consider are acceptable limits without undermining our belief in what we are seeing.

Two thumbs up for the locations as well, we are talking some solid background to help build the atmosphere that aims to get under your defences. I must admit I would have preferred a larger main stage for our various actors but you take what you can Downunder, we no longer have those honking great Dickenson buildings the Yanks seem to pull out of their bums as required. The Brothers Cairnes use their locations to perfection and do managed to get some very serious chills happening, but this comes at the cost of the inter personal drama. We get character viewpoints at the start of the movie, which does present motivations etc., but really they don't change regardless of what might be coming down the pike. The Cairnes seem to have ejected anything like character development or allowing their characters to change regardless of situation. No amount of solid acting can overcome this but full respect to the cast who are rocking it regardless.

Guess I've already indicated the central cool concept to Scare Campaign, expect the unexpected, get ready for some cool twists coming at you as Marcus attempts to ramp up the situation for ratings glory. Once again he is restrained by the dictates of commercial television, but hey you get the idea. I was faintly amused, as in dealing with idiots gets old real quick, as the usual internet heroes pointed out they knew every twist coming at us, cool story Bro. So if nothing else the movie is worth catching for the ground being pulled out from under your feet, I was rocking out to this aspect and have a feeling the Cairnes Bros had a lot of fun developing the script, which is above average BWT, beyond characterisation of course.

Before someone writes in demanding to know what drugs I'm taking, huge amount people diagnosed with an extreme non-fatal medical condition, the ending of Scare Campaign works for me like a roast dinner on a wintery Sunday arvo. I don't need my movies wrapped and tied with bows over here, throw an ending at me that needs interpretation and I'm your man Charlie Brown. Do I have ideas about what might have happened after the end credits rolled, hell yes, do I want to catch the sequel if made, are the Coalition against Intellectualism! For non-Aussies that is a big affirmative, fingers crossed the Bros are even now developing a follow up revenge orientated movie.

While Scare Campaign isn't going to be winning any awards soon, those things suck at the best of times, it still stands head and shoulders above the morass of horror we normal get thrown on our plates. There's a lot to enjoy about this movie, if you don't mind a bit of blood and guts, and for sure it will have you bright eyed and bushy tailed. I'm recommending this one to horror fans, and pretty much not going out on a limb to recommend it to anyone else. If you travel the cinematic dark highways you are going to be rocking to this bad boy, if not then it just might not be your cup of tea. Dial in kids, the Cairnes have hit another one out of the ball park.

ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ...

  The Cairnes Bros'campaign is a success.