What the hell is Phoenix Forgotten, you ask? Well, dear reader, that is a great question. I had never heard of this movie until it appeared on the release schedule a couple of weeks ago. I never saw a single trailer or commercial for it. It features a cast of unknowns, is from a first-time director (Justin Barber) and was even released from a first-time distributer (Cinelou Films). Yet somehow, this pile of nonsense was given a nationwide theatrical release and, according to the arbitrary rules that I’ve established for myself, that means that I have to be the one person that goes to see it. You’re welcome.
Phoenix Forgotten is a found-footage movie inspired by the real-life sighting of a UFO flying over Phoenix in 1997. Following the sighting, three teenagers suspect that something strange is afoot, so they grab some handheld cameras and head into the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland to investig-…… sorry, wrong movie. They grab some cameras and head into the desert to investigate. After wandering around for an eternity or so, they start to see and hear strange things, they get lost, their compass stops working and they start to realize that there really is a witch in the woo-…. sorry, wrong movie again. They start to realize that there really are aliens in the desert. This footage is mixed with documentary footage, set in the present day, of the sister of one of the kids trying to investigate their disappearance. The sister’s story literally goes nowhere; the movie doesn’t even return to her after the 1997 footage ends. I’m not a betting man, but I would wager that the original intent was for the footage of the three kids to be the entire movie and the filmmakers added the sister when they realized they didn’t have enough material for a feature-length movie.
Nothing happens in this movie. Nothing. I mentioned that the sister’s entire subplot is just filler to pad the running time, but not a damn thing happens for most of the 1997 footage either. It’s like your most boring friends are forcing you to watch home videos of a hiking trip that they took, but the sadistic bastards rented a movie theater for the ordeal. As a found footage movie, we know how this is going to end. It will end the same way all these goddamn things end. The camera will get real shaky, there will be some loud noises, the camera will fall to the ground and text will appear saying that the characters were never seen again. I spent what felt like an eternity watching these jackwagons wander around the desert waiting for an ending that is more inevitable than the last act of Titanic. I checked the running time as I left the theater and couldn’t believe that it is only 87 minutes. I thought I was in there for hours. I expected the sun to be rising and giving me the finger as it rose above the horizon. But, no. Time just stood still for me as I experienced the horror of sitting through this.
This movie feels like a film student’s senior thesis that was accidentally released to theaters. When this is available on demand/Netflix (which should be in a few hours or so), I challenge you to lay down, put this on and try to make it to the end of the movie without falling asleep. There are no other rules to this game. You can make a pot of coffee using Red Bull instead of water and substitute cocaine for sugar if you want. I bet that you will still fail. If you succeed, your reward will be losing 87 minutes of your life that you will never get back. Good luck!
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Forgotten#/media/File:PhoenixForgottenPoster.jpg
