Europa Report

Dir: Sebastián Cordero

2013

**

I have mixed feelings about ‘Found footage’ movies. The Blair Witch Project is massively overrated, the best example of how great it can be – and the biggest influence in the sub-genre as far as I can tell – is Remy Belvaux’s 1992 cult hit Man Bites Dog although you could argue the brilliant (and misunderstood) Cannibal Holocaust was the first. While Troll Hunter and Cloverfield utilised the method rather splendidly, the now overused technique seems stuck in Paranormal Activity hell, with only the VHS series remaining watchable and vaguely original. It seems baffling to me, considering we are a society that is now recorded 24 hours a day from every angle no matter where we are, that film makers still struggle to think of new ideas or how to incorporate home footage and CCTV into their films. I have thought of several situation where this method of filming could be utilised, and without wanting to shout ‘I thought of it first’ (because I didn’t), I had thought of space – or more specifically, a space ship – as the perfect place to make such a film. Europa Report does everything a good found footage film should do, with each CCTV shot looking authentic and unstaged. However, it incorporates these scenes into a sort of post-event documentary that just doesn’t work at all. A good found footage film – indeed, a good horror/thriller/mystery film in general – leaves the conclusion to the imagination of the audience. Again, the only time actual narration of film footage has worked is in the sub-genre’s granddaddy, the aforementioned Cannibal Holocaust. It’s like watching someone narrating through sign language at the corner of the screen when you’re not actually deaf, but with condescension. Europa Report should have been 2001: A CCTV Odyssey, instead it was like watching a bunch of inept astronauts, clumsily killing themselves until accidently landing their ship on an octopus nest. The big alien reveal is astonishingly anticlimactic, I had wondered whether the film would link with Gareth Edward’s brilliant 2010 movie Monsters (his aliens looked similar and came from Europa) but alas it was merely a coincidence. I say coincidence, but the truth of the matter is that Europa Report looks like so many spaceship horror films, I’m not sure it’s the appropriate word. While the visuals are polished and the pace is reassuringly slow, the fact is that they can’t even get the clichés right. At no point did I think I was watching footage of a group of astronauts in space, for me it was six actors, in a room, pretending to be in space. There was no illusion and certainly no magic. I felt nothing when one of them died, not because I’m a cold hearted crocodile, but because the film never connected with me on an emotional level. I can’t say I cared much for the characters in 2001: A Space Odyssey (my favourite space movie) but it was full of mystery, intrigue and possibilities. Europa Report has zero intrigue, little mystery and squanders any of the many possibilities it could have explored. You can’t blame any of this on a lack of budget (I would like to suggest John Carpenter’s Dark Star as an example), this is all about the writing – or lack of it. It’s one thing not to try but it’s another to not even pretend they did. All the ‘silent in space’ scenes were used when they ran out of script and when there was dialogue and longed for the eerie silence that only space can deliver. The visuals weren’t all bad but all the best scenes were ruined by the fake narrative ‘talking head’ interviews from mission control back on earth. It was terrifying when we first discovered that in space no one can hear you scream. Less terrifying when we found out that actually, people can, and you have to listen to their commentary of it and their emotionless fake crying. It wastes a brilliant cast too.