Snapshot film review: Gimmicky ghost-hunting escapades
Joseph Archer’s use of ‘found footage’ to transport audiences to the Jack The Ripper-era mass paranoia is sleuth-worthy and engrossing despite the technological period inaccuracies
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An entertainingly oddball affair, Joseph Archer’s horror-thriller is a lurid combination of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom and The Blair Witch Project, set in the era of Jack The Ripper. An opening title suggests that this found-footage, supposedly from 1888, was recently turned over to today’s authorities to revive various cold cases, a fanciful notion that doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny. While primitive filmmaking was around during this period, most audiences will recognise that the technology required for this kind of on-location shoot wouldn’t exist for decades, even with synchronized sound recorded on wax cylinders.
Putting such unlikely technical details aside, Cathy Wippell’s script purports to detail an investigation into the ‘Whitechapel prostitute murders’. Amateur cameraman and full-time voyeur Tamworth (Tom Stourton) turns his primitive lens on the Victorian underworld, conducting interviews with potential victims, spiritualists and ghost-hunters; but why is Tamworth really involved? Constructing an 80-minute film told via a pinhole camera proves to be an unwieldy restriction, forcing narrative contrivances to allow the off-screen protagonist to be constantly on the spot as the action unfolds. A must for bidding Ripperologists, Snapshot overcomes such implausibilities to make something original of its tricky central gimmick, and provide an ingenious nightmare in monochrome.
Snapshot, Cineworld, 16 August, 5.45pm; 18 August, 10.15pm; Cameo, 17 August, 11.15pm.