Once upon a time, thanks to the success of The Blair Witch Project in 1999, the found footage subgenre of horror felt fresh and was a nice change of pace after the Scream slasher era began to wane. Of course, if any film breaks new ground, expect Hollywood to dig deeper and deeper until there's nothing left. Every now and then, a great found footage horror film comes around like Paranormal Activity or the V/H/S franchise, but there have been countless imitators, with nothing more than the same beats of shaky cameras, screaming characters, jump scares, and everyone dying at the end. If you've seen one mediocre found footage movie, you've seen them all.
With that said, a new entry into the subgenre, the Australian-made Puzzle Box, releasing on digital today, aims to be something outside the norm. Written and directed by Jack Dignan (After She Died), Puzzle Box is a smaller movie where characters matter way more than any monster because Dignan knows there is nothing to be afraid of if we're not first emotionally invested. What we get is a horror movie that's not about your usual hauntings, but is instead more of an invasion against the mind, putting its lead characters in a house at night all alone and then pulling the rug out from under them. Puzzle Box has its flaws, and it's not going to change the genre, but if you're a fan of found footage, this is one of the better ones you'll find in recent years.
What Is 'Puzzle Box' About?
Puzzle Box opens with a scream in the woods. Oh boy, here we go again, right? Before you can set your expectations, the film pulls back. It's not about creepy witches in the woods or a supernatural force awakened by a Ouija board or anything of the like. Instead, we're witnesses to an unraveling family drama between two twenty-something sisters, Kait (Kaitlyn Boyé) and Olivia (Laneikka Denne). Kait is a drug addict who has failed in rehab over and over. Something went very horribly wrong during her last rehab stay, so now Olivia is taking it upon herself to save her sister. Both need this to work because Olivia is at her wit's end and wants her life back.
The plan is to take Kait to a house they've rented deep in the woods where, away from everything and everyone, she will have a chance to detox. Olivia is not only there for support but to film it all as proof to the doctors that Kait can be helped. Sadly, it's their relationship that needs just as much saving. Kait is understandably not a fan of being recorded or of the weekend plan, and Olivia is frustrated that her sister won't get better. On top of that, their mother has recently passed away, which is a source of division between them. Puzzle Box knows that the best horror starts with removing everything that can be a source of safety. We're going to take our protagonists away from civilization, we're going to take them emotionally away from each other, and we're going to remind them that their mother has been taken away as well. Those are effective horror plot devices, which is why you so often have several horror movies set in the middle of nowhere, or with characters lost in their own grief over the passing of a family member.
This doesn't mean that Puzzle Box is lost in tropes, only that it knows how to use them. The plotline is similar to Fede Álvarez's 2013 Evil Dead, where a drug-addled Mia (Jane Levy) is taken to a cabin in the woods to get clean, but the house Kait and Olivia arrive at is a large, multi-level home. It seems picture-perfect, although there are no curtains on the windows and the homeowners have forgotten to leave the key card. Eventually, the bickering sisters get inside and settle in, but then the lights suddenly go out and Olivia disappears.
'Puzzle Box's Characters Keep Everything Together When the Plot Falters
The first act of Puzzle Box mostly has the camera pointed at Kait, making her the star, and Olivia a faceless presence directing their next steps. However, when Olivia disappears, Kate must fend for herself, which she has repeatedly failed at in life, to find her sister and get the hell out of there. Locating someone who has seemingly vanished into thin air inside of a locked home is already stressful enough, but then there's the mysterious screaming woman (Cassandre Girard) who appears inside the house out of nowhere. That's never good, especially when her face is covered in blood, and she runs screaming at Kait with a knife in her hand. Our hero manages to get away, only for the screaming woman to be there again and again, no matter where she goes. The sounds of those screams far off in the dark are chilling, but they do get so repetitive that after a while they begin to lose their impact and start to become annoying instead of scary. More horror directors need to remember that a little goes a long way rather than, well, if it worked the first time, it'll work the second, third, and fourth times too.
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Kait needs to find a way out of the house, but when she gets to the front door and runs outside, she's suddenly back inside again. Several times in Puzzle Box, someone will walk from one room into another only to find themselves back where they started. That creates a mind-bending and discombobulated plot, which works when the camera isn't spinning out of control and leaving us more off-center than the characters are. At just 73 minutes, Puzzle Box is a shorter film that knows not to overstay its welcome with its singular setting, but it still feels overly long in the second act where it begins to spin its wheels, running in place, until enough time has passed that it can jump to the third act. The ending itself, where the pieces come together, doesn't quite stick the landing, but kudos to Dignan for not wanting to do the same old thing that plenty of other found footage films do in their final scenes.
Puzzle Box is a middle-of-the-road found footage film; not great, and not horrible, but it's the characters that make it memorable. Take away the horror of the story unfolding in front of them, and you still have a compelling drama between one sister who is ready to let go and live her own life and another one who just wants one more chance to get it right this time. Kait and Olivia fight, they come together, and they run for their lives, and we lean in, hoping they'll make it, if this house will ever let them go.
Puzzle Box uses found footage tropes to create a tense family drama compelling enough to carry the narrative when the scary house plot starts to tire.
- Boyé and Denne have great chemistry as sisters who both love and can't stand each other.
- The screaming woman is pure nightmare fuel when she first appears.
- The house is set up in such a way as to confuse the senses, making it hard for the viewer to feel safe.
- The second act loses steam and the plot gets repetitive.
- The screaming woman is overused, going from scary to simply annoying.
- Release Date
- August 12, 2023
- Director
- Jack Dignan
- Cast
- Kaitlyn Boyé , Laneikka Denne , Cassandre Girard , Janelle McMenamin , Matias Klaver , Hazel Pompeani
- Runtime
- 73 Minutes
- Writers
- Jack Dignan
Puzzle Box is now available to buy and rent on Apple TV.
Rent on Apple TV
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