Editorials
‘Alone’: ‘Shutter’ Follow-Up Delivers Eerie Tale of Survivor Guilt [Horrors Elsewhere]
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
Although Japan and South Korea dominated the import boom of Asian horror circa 2000s, Thailand gained more attention all thanks to one movie. Shutter, the 2004 ghost story about a haunted photographer, put Thai horror on everyone’s radar. And when it came time to follow up on their debut, filmmakers Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom stayed within the same genre, as well as crafted another suspenseful haunter.
Alone begins in South Korea where the protagonist, Pim (Marsha Wattanapanich), now lives with her husband, Wee (Vittaya Wasukraipaisan). After Pim’s surprise birthday party, she receives word about her mother, who has been hospitalized for a heart attack back in Thailand. Pim temporarily relocates so she can be by her mother’s side, but being back home starts to stir up bad memories and unresolved feelings. Until they were fifteen years old, Pim and her twin sister, Ploy, were conjoined. The operation that separated them was not entirely successful; only Pim survived. Pim has quietly lived with the guilt since then, but being back in her homeland, she can only think of Ploy. That shame eventually begins to manifest as visions and apparitions in the corner of her eye. Is this all the work of a troubled conscience, or does Ploy’s spirit actually inhabit her childhood home?
The main inspiration for Alone is undoubtedly the most famous set of conjoined twins, Chang and Eng Bunker. The now-outdated term ‘Siamese twins’ originated with the brothers, who were born in Thailand when it was called Siam. However, Alone is also inspired by a longstanding cultural notion about twinship. Superstitions surrounding identical twins vary from place to place, but one single belief is widespread. Ancient folklore and mythology planted the idea that one twin can be the moral inversion of the other. Later on, the ‘evil twin’ was born and popularized by books, film, and television. While the horror genre is no stranger to the trope, few movies focus on conjoined twins. Even fewer see them as individualized characters free of stereotypes.
Representing polar ends of the morality scale, Pim is always seen as the kind-hearted twin, whereas Ploy is immortalized as the jealous and selfish one. This is a traditional depiction in media; twins are extreme opposites in personality. Even though other stories might reference the yin and yang construct when writing their twins as night and day characters, there is also the complementary element — the twins complete each other — that is absent from Pim and Ploy’s relationship. They were more harmonious in the past, but things changed for the worse once Wee came between them.
The nature of identity is something regularly explored with twins. In Alone, Ploy is seen as the more aggressive and protective sister. She stood up to the bullies who made fun of her and Pim; at one point she hit one of their childhood tormentors square in the face with a rock. So when Wee came along, the twin dynamic was upset. Ploy not only feared losing her role as Pim’s knight, she felt alienated by her sibling’s romance. Being scared of abandonment is one thing, but Ploy’s tactics to keep her sister and Wee apart suggests something else was going on. Something darker.
Pisanthanakun and Wongpoom approach the supernatural aspect of Alone rather differently this time around. In Shutter, the ghost Ananda Everingham’s character sees is less ambiguous in both appearance and origin. Meanwhile, Pim’s mental breakdown is evidenced by visceral and spectral fantasies that may or may not be the work of a restless spirit. She sees horrifying figures just about everywhere she goes; in a mirror, in the bathtub, in the garden house, and inside an elevator. Yet every time something bizarre happens, Wee and a psychologist try to convince her — and the audience — this is only a product of Pim’s guilt complex. The film does its damndest to create an air of doubt surrounding the phantasmal antagonist.
This era of Asian horror was big on overt jolts and scares, and Alone did not shy away from the trend. The frights are pulled off in all seriousness without the intermittent comic relief so common in the directors’ horror output. When there is no ghost action to be found, the movie delivers random and grisly shocks that will not sit well with animal lovers. Alone exudes meanness here and there, and when it wants to, it is plain nasty.
After the sizable twist in Shutter, the audience can expect something similar — but very different — for Alone. Going down the road it takes, though, the movie risks losing its audience. Almost always, Thai horror tends to be about ghosts as opposed to the human killers, zombies, and other villains commonly seen in Western movies. For all intents and purposes, there is an unearthly force at work here, but just as easily, the events can be explained away with a more logical theory.
Alone stokes thoughts of doppelgängers and survivor guilt. Wattanapanich’s performance is unchained, Niramon Ross‘ cinematography surpasses that of her last collaboration with the directors, and the ending takes a turn in the best way possible. The movie does not quite pack the same punch as its predecessor; Shutter hands down wins in terms of reveals. Even so, Pisanthanakun and Wongpoom put together an exceptional sophomore film that deserves a bigger audience and wider distribution.
Hollywood tends to learn all of the wrong lessons when confronted with an indie success story that doesn’t follow the established rules of the industry. For instance, instead of accepting that the massive success of Backrooms has more to do with Kane Parsons’ individual talent as an established artist who has been producing high-quality videos since the pandemic (combined with the popularity of liminal horror among younger audiences), producers are now trudging through old Reddit posts looking for the next viral meme that studios think might have the potential to be turned into a cash cow.
This is by no means a new phenomenon, and I think one of the most pertinent examples of Hollywood misunderstanding what makes a movie work has to be the aftermath of The Blair Witch Project. While Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’s genre-defining movie proved that POV camerawork and lo-fi aesthetics can captivate mainstream audiences when backed by a genuinely compelling story, there was a sudden trend of filmmakers attempting to appear hip by incorporating found footage into their films as if the occasional presence of diegetic recordings was enough to make a movie seem “hip”.
That’s why the 2000s were such a frustrating period for found footage fans, as the genre was still mostly relegated to obscure indie productions while studios only teased us with the format’s narrative potential. And yet, talented filmmakers can tell compelling stories under any circumstances, and this is how we get to the weird world of found footage bonus features produced alongside traditional movies.
Diegetic filmmaking may not necessarily be easier than conventional camerawork (it’s a lot harder to simulate reality without the added toolbox of cinematic editing), but it’s certainly a hell of a lot cheaper. That’s why it makes sense that plenty of high profile projects invested in found footage bonus content in order to add value to their home video releases – a once profitable industry that is sorely missed in the current media landscape.
The irony here is that many of these found footage extras were a little too good when compared to their promotional origins. With that in mind, I’d like to take a closer look at three examples of found footage bonus features that were better than the movie they were meant to enhance!
3. Halloween: Resurrection (2002): WebCam Special
I might lose some of my horror cred for admitting this, but Halloween: Resurrection was actually the first Halloween film I ever saw. Thankfully, this misguided entry didn’t scare me off from watching the other movies in the series, but even as a teenager I recognized that the flick’s premise of an online streaming show gone wrong had some merit to it – it’s just too bad that these ideas were never fully realized in the feature itself.
It was only years later that I discovered the fabled WebCam Special on Resurrection’s physical media release and got the film I had always wanted. This 41-minute cut of the film is by no means a masterpiece, but excluding everything except for the found footage elements of the production somehow transforms this ill-advised sequel into a deeply unsettling exercise in voyeuristic cinema.
In fact, I’d argue that the long takes of Michael simply moving through the house without calling attention to himself are much closer to John Carpenter’s original vision of the bogeyman than any of the exaggerated sequels that depict The Shape as something more akin to a superpowered Jason Voorhees. It’s just a shame that the franchise would never explore this format again.
2. Believers (2007): The Quanta Group Videos
Daniel Myrick’s Believers is by no means a bad movie, with this direct-to-video thriller following a duo of paramedics who find themselves captured by a deranged death cult inspired by all the worst aspects of Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate. Unfortunately, the Blair Witch alumni’s low-budget exploration of religious madness was quickly forgotten simply because most people didn’t bother to engage with the other half of the experience by exploring the DVD menu.
Within the disc’s extras, Myrick actually included in-universe interviews and orientation videos meant to expand the Quanta Group’s backstory and beliefs. These found footage recordings greatly enhance The Believers by providing much-needed context for some of the film’s scariest moments. There’s even a wonderfully creepy epilogue sequence here as another group explores the cult’s dilapidated compound after the events of the film.
While it’s baffling that this material didn’t make it into the movie itself through in-universe cutaways (especially IO’s darkly humorous interview), watching it alongside Myrick’s film turns the whole thing into a highly compelling multi-media experience.
1. Dawn of the Dead (2004): The Lost Tape & Special Report: Zombie Invasion
I’ve always considered 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake to be Zack Snyder’s best film (though most of the flick’s qualities are the result of James Gunn’s excellent script) even if it fails to capture the social anxieties of Romero’s 1978 original. However, this apocalyptic production is also the perfect example of an expensive project being overshadowed by the low-budget bonus features on its own home video release.
You see, the Dawn of the Dead DVD actually boasts two separate found footage short films that I find much scarier than the movie they’re marketing. The Lost Tape: Andy’s Terrifying Last Days Revealed is a somber video diary written by Gunn and starring Bruce Bohne as the ill-fated Andy – a minor character in the main film who becomes trapped in his own gun store when the zombies attack. Then there’s my personal favorite, Special Report: Zombie Invasion, a fully simulated news program starring Babylon 5’s Richard Biggs (as well as Bruce Boxleitner) that chronicles the spread of the undead virus.
Not only do these bonus features add context to Snyder’s film, but I’d argue that they make for a better standalone viewing experience than the so-called “main attraction”. Special Report honestly feels like a charming low-budget adaptation of Max Brooks’ World War Z novel (despite coming out a couple of years before that book was published), and I adore how The Lost Tapes turns Andy into a genuinely tragic figure.
These obviously aren’t the only found footage extras worth revisiting (for instance, I adore that Skull Island mockumentary that accompanied the special edition of Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake), but I figured that the three aforementioned projects could provide us with a snapshot of a curious moment in popular culture where found footage could still impress viewers despite not being quite as respected by the studio system.
That being said, don’t forget to sound off in the comments below if you can think of any other found footage bonus features that deserve a shout-out! After all, I’d love to see this trend of diegetic extras make a comeback in modern times – especially where found footage-heavy movies like Backrooms are concerned.
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