They're Outside - FrightFest 2020

Folk horror and threats from the green have been making something of a comeback recently both with film, stories and articles. It’s a sub-genre that tickles the soul of these islands scratching at the myths of a pagan past that probably never quite existed in the way that some would like to think.

Professor Richard Hill (Nicholas Vince) introduces the film through some drawings to the fantastical world of ‘green eyes’ which is a local curse and creature that haunts the woods. This is Sussex and it has drawn documentary maker and ‘therapist’ Max Spencer (Tom Wheatley) to Hastings to speak to Sarah (Chrissy Randall) an agoraphobic who hasn’t left her house for five years. Before the recording proper Max pays a visit and proves to be one right creep and vile person. It’s an awkward encounter as Sarah gives him a tour of the house and lets him into her life.

So the recordings begin and it soon becomes clear that Max is pretty much there for the sake of his own ego, to the extent of doing his own crew down. Sarah’s friend Penny (Emily Booth) gets involved with a smart performance from Booth in a role gently takes the rise out of some of her past presenter jobs.

Over several days the fate of Sarah’s daughter Libby is discussed with the ‘Green Eyes’ myth to the fore if not entirely convincingly. However mysterious sightings, sleepwalks and a room trashing suggest that it is more complicated than first appears?

The found footage sub-genre is dead, long live the found footage sub-genre. That inelegant sentence is painful but is somewhat more articulate than a ‘sigh’. It’s been done to death though the likes of The Borderlands, The Devil’s Doorway and right up to date with Host have injected new life. They’re Outside isn’t quite up with those but writer Airell Anthony Hayles offers a few nuggets that make it film well worth watching, very much on its own merits.

The Max character is totally unlikeable but serves as a satisfying satire on the YouTube age ego centric in both his treatment of the subjects and his crew. The set is tight so it has a very effective claustrophobic feel and look, which co-directors Hayles and Sam Casserly use to the max.

When the film does venture out the mystery is broadened with carvings on the tree and the film taking a different aspect with the woods seemingly endless. It’s neatly spliced together even when there are several different sources of footage fed it doesn’t lose any of its tone. In particular the final act when things to get surprisingly nasty and genuinely shocking.