Beckoning the Butcher (2013)★★☆☆☆

This was an odd movie. It was also a short movie. And unfortunately, it wasn’t a great movie.

The film alternates between found footage of Chris Shaw (his internet claim to fame is that he makes videos debunking paranormal rituals – think Bloody Mary or Candyman) and his friends and random interviews (think talking heads). The switching is a bit disorienting, and the interviews are ridiculous. Seriously – they’re either with a psychic who says things like “blood is literally a person’s life force” or with Chris Shaw’s brother who blames himself for showing Chris the “deep web” (you know, the one he says is under the “surface internet”).

I almost think that the filmmakers needed to fill up some screen time to make this a feature-length film – like maybe they only made the found footage part first, but it was only 40 minutes long, so they added the interviews later. What they ended up with is an hour and nine minutes that feels like two hours.

The premise was interesting, the acting was okay, and because it was done as a pseudo-documentary, there wasn’t any background music to worry about, but this is a movie you can skip. It would probably be more entertaining to try to find the “deep web” and beckon the Butcher yourself.