‘He’s Watching’ Review: Hypnotic, Terrifying Found Footage

Check out Chad Collins’ 4-star review of ‘He’s Watching,” Jacob Aaron Estes’ shocking new found footage horror film.

Found footage is back. Once the genre standard, largely on account of accessibility and astronomical returns on low-budget fare, recent years have seen the shaky-cam subgenre slip back into indie obscurity. Strictly speaking, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Too much of anything cultivates exhaustion and oversaturation. The Devil was due one too many times for audiences to stomach.

Recent years have seen a considerable, worthwhile resurgence, however. The likes of The Outwaters and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair have dominated the horror landscape for good reason. With found footage horror, there’s an innate sense of dread rooted in realism. It’s a kind of terror unique to the format. He’s Watching, the latest from indie sensation Jacob Estes (see: Mean Creek or Don’t Let Go), continues the trend. It’s nightmarish dreamscape with a preeminent interest in vibes. Willing audience members will easily find themselves consumed by the darkness.

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Siblings Iris and Lucas (Iris Serena and Lucas Steel Estes, the director’s children playing fictionalized versions of themselves) are left on their own while their parents recover from an unclear illness. Filmed during the COVID-19 lockdown, with production notes highlighting its inception as a way to assuage swelling boredom, the peripheral pandemic amounts to one of He’s Watching’s greatest weaknesses. Pandemic horror is part and parcel of the genre now, for better or worse, and unconvincing digital graphics on news reports distract more than they augment the swelling terror. Admittedly, the pandemic is mere window dressing. But with a cast so naturalistic, the repeated early act returns to lockdown feel moot. It’s a plot device to keep the siblings isolated but little more.

He’s Watching’s scares start in earnest soon thereafter. Most of the scares center around a being colloquially referred to as “The Closet Creeper.” Footage captured by both siblings is interspersed with late night shots neither Iris nor Lucas admit to taking. It’s a disorienting filmic style that grounds the terror and unease. All the while, their parents remain unresponsive, opening messages but not responding. This triggers growing unease in Iris especially, even if it does take her a bit too long to recognize something is awry.

Textual transitions, principally title cards, mark the passage of time alongside key details withheld from the protagonists, such as when Jacob falls into a coma off-screen. Intermittently, the two kids make odd art films. These are opportunities to flex Estes’ digital prowess. Meanwhile, as siblings do, they bicker and banter until they head to bed. The Closet Creeper continues his voyeuristic charade. He films them and leaves strange notes in the night. They’re frightening ventures punctuated by narrated dreams and self-aware concessions that something isn’t quite right.

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He’s Watching eschews logic and narrative fidelity as it transitions from its first to second act. It’s here where the movie takes on an identity of its own. While the early going is a found footage prerequisite—establish the filming motif, get to know the characters, settle in routine with gnawing tension—the latter half is bonafide crimson chaos.

While it isn’t always clear what’s going on, and composer Keefus Ciancia’s work at times does the heavy lifting, there’s enough horrific imagery and nocturnal terrors to rattle even the most hardened of horror fans. In fact, He’s Watching is so effective at razing equilibrium as it descends into hellish paranoia, it genuinely feels unsafe at times. It’s the kind of movie that near begs an audience to stop watching in the best possible way. I noted We’re All Going to the World’s Fair earlier, and in many ways, He’s Watching sits nicely alongside it as a vibe-oriented, found footage haunt. Both are drenched in dour moods and dream-like scares; terrors that start small until they burrow into the brain and completely take over.

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The audience is kept off-kilter with He’s Watching’s unique brand of insanity and weirdness. It stands out while being wholly recognizable (for good measure, Estes includes a terrifying clown visage). Masks, naked men, and demonic exposition round it out. While the conclusion to such a strange trip inevitably falls short, there’s enough thunderously odd goodwill in the preceding portion to compensate.

Poised almost by default to divide audiences, He’s Watching won’t win over any new converts, even if detractors are liable to find a thing or two they like within. As a touchstone in the contemporary resurgence of found footage, however, He’s Watching is a success. Frightening, hallucinatory, and tenderly composed as a family affair, it’s not only a distinct found footage entry. It’s one of the best the subgenre has seen in years.

Summary

Hypnotic and unique, He’s Watching is a testament to the staying power of found footage

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