As the 20th century turned into the 21st, there was a new development in the film industry. A niche subgenre began to emerge within the horror space, a type of film that would later be categorized as “found footage.” These are movies that strive to have the audience believe that they were never meant for general consumption. It was material that had been lost and was “found” and then shown to the masses for our entertainment. In 1999,The Blair Witch Projectcaptured our imagination with its mockumentary style that landed somewhere between home movies and cinéma vérité.Along with a very effective marketing campaign, audiences genuinely couldn’t decipher what was fact and what was fiction.
In the late 00s,Paranormal Activitypicked up on whatBlair Witchstarted. Its lightning-in-a-bottle success led to multiple sequels and is often seen as the beginning of the modern-day found footage trend.Matt Reeves’Cloverfieldwas released the year afterParanormal Activityand by the time 2010 rolled around, the found footage film had become firmly ensconced within the independent filmmaking community as well as the more progressive Hollywood studios. It wasn’t until 2013 when two guys from Canada made a passion project calledAfflictedthat the horror subgenre reached its apex. If you haven’t seen the small film written, directed, and starringDerek LeeandClif Prowse, then you haven’t seen the best small-budget found footage film. It combines superb special effects that you would expect from a big-budget studio picture without losing its profoundly innocent tone.
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What is ‘Afflicted’ About?
Afflictedhas a very similar introduction toCloverfield. We join the two stars as they are celebrating an upcoming six-continent, thirty-country trip around the world and all their friends have come together for a raucous bon voyage send-off. Derek and Clif are visibly excited about embarking on a long trip abroad that will eventually circle the globe as they both provide candid and authentic interviews to better introduce themselves. A handheld camera shakes with the rawness of a home movie as we get to know our journeymen as they toast and drink to the upcoming trip of a lifetime. The film’s first ten minutes come across as genuinely unrehearsed to the point where if you didn’t know it was a feature, it would appear as just another documentary journal. The characters are just slight dramatizations of themselves. Within the first scene, it becomes clear that Clif will be doing the majority of the filming and Derek will be his subject. Clif also provides some ad-lib narration to keep us apprised of where the two are and where they plan on going. When the two arrive in Europe, they are like kids in a candy store. It is a fantastically unpolished production that sucks you in like you’re along for the ride with your best friends or watching an episode ofThe Amazing Race.
The Trip is Off to a Perfect Start
The first stop upon arriving in Europe is Barcelona, Spain, and Derek and Clif are having the adventure of their lives that includes a skydiving excursion and fun with Canadian rock star friends who are also in Europe playing small clubs. When they arrive in Paris for a night of clubbing and pursuing women, Derek finds an unlikely Parisian partner named “Audrey” at the bar where his friends are playing and takes her home. When Clif finds Derek bloodied and unconscious the next morning, it is a pivot in the overall mood and direction of the film. Audrey is nowhere to be found and Derek very quickly begins to show bizarre symptoms. In the next few scenes which are shot with incredible point-of-view photography, it is clear that Derek is in the initial stages of some sort of metamorphosis. Whatever happened with Audrey has started Derek on a nightmarish journey that is getting worse by the day.
Top Notch Makeup Enhances the Macabre Transformation
As Derek begins to enter into his altered state, his ghoulish appearance is made even more believable by phenomenal makeup artists. As Derek’s body begins to change, they amp up the horror and macabre with terrific visual aesthetics. When Derek is in need of blood, he takes on a pale white appearance, and his eyes are clouded over. The combination of makeup and maximizing the use of both light and dark heightens the feeling that something truly horrifying has befallen not only Derek but also Clif who can only document what is happening to his best friend. Being in a foreign country is the perfect setting for the film as it adds an unfamiliarity thereby exacerbating the communication barrier and promoting a haunting sense of isolation. It all adds to a palpable sense of hopelessness that gets your stomach churning as they wander the streets of Paris in search of fresh blood.
‘Afflicted’ Makes the Most of Its Miniscule Budget
Initially, Derek’s symptoms appear to be a superhuman gift. He has strength like Hulk and speed like The Flash. During the onset of his transformation, Clif films Derek doing unimaginable feats like smashing his fist through a brick wall, running at over 40 miles per hour, and scaling large structures like Spider-Man. But the fun and games are short-lived as Derek’s symptoms become much worse while undergoing a horrific physical change that makes it difficult to discern whether Derek has succumbed to the entity that has taken over his mind and body. Prowse and Lee deliver these superhuman events with tremendous aplomb. If you didn’t know the budget for the film was just a hair over $300,000, it would pass as a major studio-backed film similar to 2012’s 20th Century Fox’s found footage offering,Chronicle, which had a budget of $15 million. To put that in perspective, that is 50 times the budget that Lee and Prowse had at their disposal forAfflicted. The interweaving of controlled chaos and amateurism with meticulously calculated cinematography and crack editing is absolutely spellbinding. The entire process is astonishing to watch and a marvelous bang for your buck first-person POV production quality achievement for a couple of indie Canadian filmmakers working on a passion project.
From Home Movies as Kids to a Feature Film
After winning a handful of awards at the Toronto Film Festival and the Austin Fantastic Fest forAfflictedin 2014, the two have taken a break from partnering on film projects but remain active in the Vancouver, British Colombia film community.In an interview withColliderthat same year, the two friends talked about how they went from a couple of kids shooting videos of each other to making one of the best found footages films. Lee says:
“We sawDesperadobyRobert Rodriguez, and we thought it was the greatest thing in cinematic history, so we started doing spoofs of that where we all played fake Mexicans and beat each other up. Then I guess right around college Cliff started volunteering in films as a PA, just to get whatever job he could get. He called me up one summer, and he was like, “Hey you want to make another movie?” And I was like, “Yeah, sure.” He’s like, “Yeah, but let’s make a real movie.”
In a 2015 YouTube interview, Prowse and Lee described how they were able to achieve outstanding action sequences on such a small budget when Lee stated that it was through, “Very large cranes and brave stuntmen.” The two have been friends since the age of thirteen, and you can see how comfortable they are together in the interview. MakingAfflictedwas just a way to continue their relationship while also doing the thing that they are most passionate about. Check out the movie on Paramount+ or Showtime. You won’t be disappointed.
