I'm frequently antagonized by found footage films that tend to follow no logic and interrupt any significant action with electronic video interference. Leaving D.C. doesn't fall into any of those traps and presents a straightforward but interesting narrative about an average guy who moves out to the woods, where he's beset by what just may be supernatural phenomena. The film's mystery builds slowly and much of the interest involves simply observing star/director/writer Josh Criss doing his logical best to rise to the occasion of confronting a wave of spookiness. It's entirely watchable and Criss does a creditable job carrying the film as its primary on-camera presence, explaining the reasonable steps he's taking to identify and deflect the bizarre intrusions. While the conclusion could have used a little more oomph, the film is a good ride and an excellent example of what can be achieved with limited resources.
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jmat4028 December 2020I've watched this movie a dozen times. It's quite well done. Mark Klein appears to care about his so called friends much more than they care about him. In fact his friends don't seem to care about him at all. It took me a few viewings to realize that none of his "friends" called him or emailed him or bothered with him at all other than Claire who visited him for a very short time and wasn't at all happy about being there to begin with. With all the video updates he sent them, not one of them attempts to help him out or stay in contact with him. It's a good case study of descending into madness from being so isolated with strange things occurring and no one caring about you.
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lisabecka29 October 2018The actor gives a good, solid performance of someone who, you (a little too quickly) realize was not wound all that tight to begin with, then thrusts himself into an unfamiliar territory thinking it will be good for him. His possible issues come more and more to the forefront in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Unfortunately the lack of a budget means the ending will make you think the time spent wasn't worth it ( the end of the original Paranormal Activity was a showstopping extravaganza by contrast) but then you think, maybe it was--just to see one guy pull something like this off all by himself.
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deloudelouvain30 December 2019Right after watching Leaving D.C., which was strangely entertaining I have to admit, I told my wife this looked like a movie that was homemade by a guy that has some knowledge of modern technology, filming, and sound editing. After looking it up on IMDb I see that's exactly what happened. The writer, director and amateur actor is Josh Criss, he basically did everything by himself, probably got bored one day and thought it would be a great idea to make a movie by himself. Handycam movies are normally really not my thing, they always look so amateuristic but in this case it wasn't that bad. Josh Criss, the main and almost only character, acts pretty good, even though is role was to act as normal as possible, but that's also acting if you ask me. There is some mystery, that makes you keep watching, maybe a bit too repetitive at times, but entertaining enough to stay interesting. I would have scored it with a seven if it was not for the ending that I found a bit disappointing. Overall it wasn't a bad job for a man alone, better than some big budget productions.
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rdkalinowski8 June 2017I don't like "found footage" movies. This is one of the rare exceptions that isn't formulaic and uninspired like so many. There is no action, no impressive special effects, no jump scares, or any of the usual trappings these offerings tend to produce. There is just a man, a camera and a good, creepy story. The first 10 minutes or so does not feel like a horror movie at all, I actually had to check the title to make sure I was watching what I thought I was watching. It also bucked tradition by avoiding the big typical "hollywood-esque" ending. I found this all to be really refreshing. Granted he probably didn't have the budget for these things, but showed they aren't essential components for a good movie.
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Draysan-Jennings10 April 2019Really creepy and well done. Kept me entertained throughout the whole film. Definitely give it a shot if you are into found footage films.
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iridiumtiara29 August 2016In the first few minutes, you meet the main character. He talks into the camera, which he will do for the entirety of the film.
For the first 10 minutes or so, I thought, "This man can not die fast enough. Please let someone climb out of Crystal Lake and grab him, or appear in his dreams and stab him with knife hands, or put him in the bee helmet, or stab him in the shower, or at least let him get trapped in his car by a rabid dog. I'd be fine if he fell and couldn't get up and didn't have one of those buttons."
I thought I was going to die of boredom before anything happened to the guy on the horror film.
But, then the whole thing actually works. As weird as it sounds, you get drawn in and want to know what's going to happen next.
And, the story doesn't disappoint. The things that happen hold together with the internal reality of the film, and they're creepy. There are a hundred places they could have thrown in cheap jump scares, but they don't. They stick to a slow building time line that, in my opinion, actually pays off in the end. -
theStationkeeper3 October 2022I tend to focus on Found Footage horror movies quite a bit. I enjoy them, by and large, and look forward to seeing what each story can bring to the genre.
The lead actor was earnest, but awkward. In one part I completely agreed with the other character, and yet I don't feel that was the intent of the scene.
Minimalist is good, and the film accomplishes some good creep with a bare minimum of FX or quick cuts, and I respect that.
Having said that, I felt that at the end things were left incomplete and while that can be an effective way to end/not end the story, I felt the story was unsatisfying. The back story had far more room to work than it was given a chance to. At the end I felt I'd had a 'non-experience'.
I do appreciate amateur filmmakers. I just feel that more could have been done with a good location and a non-standard lead character. -
SashaDarko21 February 2017It was not an easy task to acquire this movie, let alone learning about it (IIRC I found it on someone's "best found footage horror" list here on IMDb).
This is probably the best found footage horror movie I watched made by one guy with little to no budget. It's extremely realistic and things happening during the movie are really scary and authentic. The movie consumes you fully, I needed to eat at some point and didn't even wanted to do that because I was too absorbed by it.
No typical tropes and no clichés, I watched hundreds of horror movies and never seen a story like this. No, the premise itself is nothing really original, but the details and the way they're presented makes the story unique.
The movie doesn't have a single freakin' jumpscare or all that stupid "noisy glitches" on the footage. Not even a "super dark" soundtrack. It just doesn't need that. Just pure, smart horror. -
Solid found-footage horror. A man who desires to leave the hustle and bustle of city life for a peaceful life in an isolated house in the woods finds that life is not as peaceful as he'd hoped.
Pretty well-executed for what it is, but also hits the typical tropes of the genre. As things escalate, the principal character refuses to accept the apparent danger he's in, leaving this viewer rolling his eyes. It's necessary for the character to stick around in order for the film to continue, but his unrealistic naivete and stubbornness takes you out of the film a bit.
The creepy parts are tantalising enough to keep you interested, and at a runtime of only 75 minutes it's not a huge investment of time and the scenario does not get overplayed. Keeps things mysterious enough to form your own theories. Worth a watch if you enjoy this sub-genre of horror. -
Not the worst found footage film I've seen and it did hold my attention but ultimately as stated in the title of this review there just wasn't enough to the plot to make this a satisfying film.
I liked the actor though. Unsure what happened at the end (I was on the verge of sleep) and what's with all the references to Venlafaxine (Effexor)? Did he include that so that we might think it was the cause of his suspicions? By the way, I was on that for years and at higher doses even. Also drank like a fish on it with my liver still intact. Hey that's just me. -
michle5322 August 2017This was a random find for me on Amazon Prime. It's a selfie movie. I found it absorbing. The main character suffers from OCD, and probably related syndromes. He's a rather lovable little noodge. He buys a house in West Virginia, 4.5 hours from Washington DC in order to escape the city. The narrative comes in the form of video updates he's sending to his OCD support group. Things start to go awry for him as his solitude is broken by late night visitations of unknown origin.
The ghostly aspects of this story didn't interest me half as much as the character study of a young neurotic coming apart in isolation. It's really very well played. He has a crush on a woman in his support group--she comes to visit and her obvious disinterest in him, combined with his eager affection for her, is sad and painful to watch. His attachment to technology is likewise poignant, as he can only relate to the unknown at first through digital devices. Things rapidly deteriorate as he tries to confront the interloper in person.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this film to a friend. -
lewismart27 January 2019Came across this on amazon prime. I had some doubts because of the terrible poster. However, the movie does indeed give some incredibly chills. The main character gives a great performance and he made the movie all by himself with is amazing. When creepy thing do happen, it is very suspenseful. This is due to the fact it feels incredibly real. There's no over the top moments that make you roll your eyes, it's a good subtle horror. I also like the fact that's it's very for your interpretation on what is going on. Is it a spirit? Or someone messing with him? However, I was slightly disappointed with some of the scares. Sometimes it felt a little bit to repetitive and the same things were happening over and over again. The first couple of times it happens it's chilling and then gets a little old. I'm talking about the chopping of wood. The flute playing gives me the chills everytime it's on. Which is the best thing about the movie. Who would imagine adding something like a flute in this type of movie and making it skin crawling. The ending as well fell a little short, it's not an awful ending, but I was expecting another 10 minutes and it just abruptly ends. The movie does what it's supposed the though, which is deliver creepy scares that a lot of found footage movies today seem not to do.
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Terrible movie that didn't go anywhere. Nothing really happened and the ending was about as dull as could be. Was nothing scary or creepy about the movie.
This was basically just some guys video diary. None of the so called supernatural stuff that was happening was interesting. -
joeyriles881 November 2018I found this movie stayed with me in a way I did not expect. There is the possibility that I underestimated it due to the thumbnail that looked like it had been made by a person just discovering MS Paint; once it began, however, I was hooked. The protagonist is unlikable and very flawed-his tone of voice and way of talking to his support group via these vlog updates leaves us wondering: did he leave D.C because he struggled to make and maintain friends? He is part of an O.C.D support network and that really comes across in the character's fastidious nature. I can't help but feel sorry for him and, though he's kind of irritating, you get the impression that he is a decent guy who just wants some peace and quiet. He hikes a bit (which is an American pastime I have never understood, along with bowling and shooting people) and discovers a cat's skull nailed to a tree, as you do. The letter B is carved above it.
M.R James' protagonists were often scholarly, academic types who came a cropper due to their active disbelief in the supernatural. The protagonist here is the modern day equivalent: a techie. He attempts to record a noise he thought he heard in the dead of night by using a Tascam/MP3 recorder. We sit with him as he begins the laborious and tedious scrolling through, looking for bumps in the audio. He is not disappointed.
Now, I teach creative writing and I am always reminding students that horror is always skating very close to hilarious. To say that he hears noises and they are unnerving is to do a disservice to the ambition Criss shows here. There are no spooky demon growls, no clanking chains, just a staccato 'chop, chop' and a plaintive voice saying "Why? Why are you doing this?" It's horrible. It's just really sad and completely without any context. He is, understandably, worried by this and sets up the recorder again. The next morning when editing he hears something that should be funny, if not laugh out loud hilarious: the sound of a flautist playing Claude Debussy's Prelude to a Faun. It isn't funny, though. It makes the flesh crawl. It's three am and somebody is playing the flute outside his window. It's a touch that makes this feel like a very different kind of ghost story.
He then decides to try and document this phenomena with a hunting camera tied to a tree (which is predictably stolen and shows a few shots of the interior of the house, including just outside his bedroom door.) This sequence also has a rather disturbing still image of a dead cat with a rather opaque poem set beside it.
Bunny by Vandal Most beautiful tart Killed her
There are also shadowy images of what looks like a girl and a male figure-possibly the killer of said cat? There is such little exposition that the ghostly goings on are almost ours to play with, which adds strength to the fear factor as there's no obvious motive. Possibly a man and woman lived out here in a twisted relationship, culminating in the nailing of her cat to a tree to teach her a lesson? Then she played the flute? It's almost better that you don't try to analyse the 'why' as it isn't supposed to make sense.
The final act is tricky. The noises do not abate, Josh has been consulting internet forums and is told to leave the presence alone but he cannot. At the same time the next night Josh, on his umpteenth whiskey, decides to go and confront the noises with his gun. We hear shouts of surprise, then terror, then shots, then silence. The camera he had been using suddenly moves as if picked up, and we fade to black.
I have given this 10 stars because it is different. It isn't perfect but it is brave and it certainly played on my fears of solitude, the woods and of classical music. -
jessicartim22 March 2020One of those micro budget, one man movies that actually works as a found footage and its spooky from beginning to end. Shows that if you have a good idea, you can make a fun little movie that overall its better and more enjoyable than some bigger budget flops.
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I used to live in a very rural area of Virginia, so I know a little about isolation and living in the middle of nowhere. This little film captures that, telegraphing how creepy places can be even when nothing creepy is actually happening. Just the knowledge that there's no one around for miles can make even the slightest sound terrifying. I do wish there had been more backstory, and maybe some mention of the crazy daughter who wandered off happening to like the flute or something. But as it stands, it's not a bad little found footage piece. A shoestring budget isn't always a bad thing.
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zamboni-3663328 July 2022I had heard about this movie in that it was a bit like the Bad Ben movies, which I love. I liked the main guy and he did a good job of a man becoming obsessed with what was happening in the woods behind his new house. Things go from bad to worse and he slowly starts falling apart. He gets a gun and decides to take matters into his own hands. Then, it ends. No resolution. No real clue as to what's really in his house. No idea what happened to him. It was annoying. Too bad..
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ferdmalenfant28 November 2019OK, enough with the fake reviews people. This is NOT even a movie! One man talking to a camera for 76 minutes is not a movie, especially when it's tagged as a HORROR and the most frightening thing that happens is a knock on a tree at night. ?? Who are the fools making these movies...better yet the fools who will watch it after this REAL review of this crap.
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What a GREAT surprise! Found footage with a reason for being--no shaking camera, no shrieking and running with the camera which is suddenly dropped at the end.
Best of an, a non-annoying lead who says his lines so well, there are not constant fade edits. This means he's talking to the camera like a real person, makes his points, and then hits stop. There are no dull spots, just a gradually building sense of tension and unease.
I thought it was terrific but couldn't find Josh anywhere on social media to thank him! -
JimmyTreeX21 October 2020Good film, it had my attention from beginning to end, even made me laugh a couple times. I was just disappointed with the end. Nothing was explained and no real grand finale. If only there was another 5-10 minutes to the movie that may have shown what it was he was dealing with, and had more to the ending.
On a side note: the fact that I've lived in a city my entire life made his move to such isolation was the most terrifying aspect of the film. -
chrislawuk29 September 2021Written, directed, edited, acted, by one man... Joss Criss. He is forever omnipresent in this movie, taking on, well, every role apart from a briefly appearing female actor. To be honest his character was well annoying, I felt like reaching through my computer monitor, grab him and kill him myself at some points. That said it was watchable if unoriginal. I got through it ok. Some people do seem to like it, one of my friends suggested it to me. Have to say I find the genre a bit of a bore. Even Blair Witch, which was admittedly good, wasn't to my taste.
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phenomynouss10 March 2018This little film plays to nearly all my favorite traits of a horror/mystery type film --- there's very little in the way of a monster or boogin, and the telltale signs of potentially spoopy ghost in the form of weird sounds is not so blazingly obvious as random demonic growls, or soft voices, but in the seemingly random form of knocking or chopping on trees, and flute music.
As well, the film doesn't outright explain or tell us a whole lot, and we're meant to catch up along the way, such as why he's out in the woods on his own, who Claire is, and what the "group" is he is documenting his life for.
the film is about a guy who moves out to a house in the middle of the woods somewhere outside of Washington D.C., part of a support group apparently, and video logging his experiences. Along the way, he starts experiencing odd events, which he begins to document via sound recordings and cameras, including the aforementioned flute music and tree chopping.
This is one of those types of horrors that rely a lot on very subtle technical details rather than big broad frights. For example, rather than having something obvious like a video camera playing without power or battery, or images of hell showing up in a memory card, we get at one point a series of seemingly innocuous shots of the protagonist's hallway taken from 3 different angles on both ends of the hall. The horror comes from the fact that, according to the timestamps, the 3 photographs, taken from one end of the hall to the other, were taken entirely in the span of 1.5 seconds, meaning what ever was using the camera was zipping around at inhuman speed.
A lot of these elements of the horror appear to be thrown out at random, but never bear the sign of being "random" for the sake of randomness. There genuinely seems to be some manner of backstory to the "supernatural" presence which is never fully revealed or explained, and it only makes the film creepier and more unsettling.
The most obvious inexplicable and creepy element is the cat skull nailed to a tree, with the letter "B" carved over it. This is a recurring element which keeps showing up, and is made even creepier by a photo left behind on one of the cameras, apparently taken by the "ghost", without a timestamp, of a dead cat in the daylight and a typed letter next to it that simply reads
"** Bunny by Vandal **
Most beautiful tart.
Killed her"
there's no explanation to this or how it ties in to the "ghost"'s story or if it's the same cat as the skull nailed to the tree, and it's utterly terrifying as is; unexplained, yet tangentially related to what's happening.
With the backstory of the previous owners, the protagonist tries to piece together just what is happening and what is causing it, sometimes resorting to simply yelling out the window at the apparent ghost as it plays the flute. Long, lingering moments tend to follow as you wait, expecting some hackneyed jump scare, maybe a face appears in the window, or a chair inside goes sliding across the room. Instead, the flute playing resumes.
The film doesn't leave the viewers completely in the dark, relying on a sort of exposition dump in the form of an e-mail exchange between him and a woman in Minnesota. But even that expo dump is full of suppositions, as the woman makes clear that she is only guessing based on what he told her.
The film has a rather abrupt ending which I feel could be enough to turn off some viewers, or cause them to outright hate the movie altogether. To me, I felt some visceral disappointment that this genuinely unsettling and fascinating experience was ending, while simultaneously grateful that it doesn't try to go for one absolute explanation over another, inevitably disappointing one group or another.
In a sense, the ending is the logical culmination of the movie's style of mystery; no clear-cut resolution or explanation. No way to comprehend something truly supernatural; only experience it. -
spilloverkill9 September 2020It keeps your attention even if it's a bit repetitive. The lead actor does a great job portraying mental illness. Just being so far out there and secluded, it gives the film a creepy vibe. Ending is a bit abrupt.
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gustheaffen4 December 2020This is by far one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It was boring and the actor was incredibly annoying and whiny. No wonder no one wanted to be around him. He gives this epic rant over a friend that wasn't interested in him, reads emails from whackos and pretty much goes crazy. Yep, that is what you wasted your time to see. Nice the film makers were able to get fake reviewers to fool people to watch this garbage.