While it was thought to be dead, the found footage gives birth from time to time to new offspring, including “NightShot”, a new exclusive of the SVOD platform Shadowz. It is a French independent production shot in 2016. For his first (and so far only) feature film, director Hugo Kôning takes the rather crazy gamble of shooting his film in a single sequence shot, a type of shot appreciated by moviegoers for the technical performance it represents. It is also due to the fact that the absence of editing allows to be more involved in the scenes that use this process.
This found footage was shot in the sanatorium of Aincourt in the Val d’Oise, a place known to urbex enthusiasts and incidentally a place known to be haunted.
It took seven days and fourteen takes, at a rate of two attempts per night, to obtain the famous shot that will become “NightShot”. Good intentions, but for what result? Technically, the film keeps all its promises, the viewer is immersed with the actress in the depths of the building, with the terrible impression of watching a live on his screen. The most impressive is the exploitation of the setting, the sanatorium of Aincourt, was not only touched and it is seen that it was the object of a true exploration, so much so that the director makes us believe, without pain and without artifice, that the building changes appearance in order to keep its prey trapped in its entrails.
Despite these qualities, “Night Shot” misses the mark on several points, primarily because of the character of the cameraman. If Nathalie Couturier’s performance (between acting, improvisation, and certainly a little fed up after a week) is exemplary, he shows a calmness in front of the situation that makes the whole film lose credibility. On the scary side, if we have to acknowledge a rather depressing atmosphere in the middle of the film, stuck between a boring first third and a last part that becomes an unofficial adaptation of the video game “Outlast”, the film is never really scary.
Finally comes the flaw that is specific to the footage, the one that makes the genre obsolete but without which it would not exist: this obsession with filming to the detriment of the rest. Because if the justification is in the air of time (the race for followers and other likes), we can not help but think that the cameraman should think of putting down his camera and using his two hands to survive rather than filming his descent into hell. All in all, “Night Shot” is a successful technical challenge and a small curiosity to discover, the invisibility of the work remaining incomprehensible in view of the concept, a marketing argument that, in the hands of a distributor who would have known how to exploit it (Jason Blum, where were you?), would have allowed a small box office hold-up like those achieved by The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, and would have propelled its main actress and director to the forefront. To be discovered exclusively on Shadowz.
