Boots on the Ground Review: A team of British soldiers find themselves trapped behind enemy lines in found footage horror, Boots on the Ground.
Boots on the Ground Review
Set in Afghanistan during October 2014, Boots on the Ground follows a squad of five British soldiers as they try and survive the last night of the Afghan War. However, the group have more than the Taliban to fear as there’s something sinister and supernatural lurking in their supposed safe haven. Who will survive till morning?
Boots on the Ground forms part of Frightfest’s 1st Blood programme. The series of films are all created by filmmakers who are still relative newcomers. In the case of Boots on the Ground we have director Louis Melville. With Boots, Melville tackles one of the trickier sub-genres of the horror film – found footage. The biggest problem usually facing a found footage film is justifying the camera. All too often it makes no sense for our characters to be filming anything that is unfolding, let alone when things start getting weird. Here, Melville manages to find an easy work-around, utilising the soldiers body-mounted tactical cameras. This technique certainly gives validation as to why our team are filming, but it still causes it’s own issues. The main problem is that, typically in a found footage film, we the audience are essentially the camera-person. It’s not often that we get a glimpse of the man, or woman, behind the camera and we the audience then assume that role. Here, we flit from camera to camera, character to character, and at times this becomes confusing. This is mainly due to the entire group, with one exception, all being male, and everyone wearing a helmet that obscures most of their face. Further confusion is caused when the supernatural story takes off, time begins to bend and, in addition to not knowing who we’re with, we don’t know when we are.
Boots on the Ground Review
The characters could do with being a little more developed, most are simply stock characters that we’ve seen plenty of times before, the clan pretty much coming off as an Afghan Dog Soliders troop. The story too, is a little muddled, potentially due to the manner in which it is told. Maybe if we were to lose the suit-camera shooting style, the story would shine better. Similarly, if our narrative wasn’t time-twisty, maybe the shooting style would work. Two great ideas sadly don’t quite marry as much as one would like. We’re not writing this one off entirely though as the tension is nicely built and the setting is suitably scary. There are some great visual sequences, especially with how the camera moves that generate some solid scares. Melville may have missed the mark for us this time around, but clearly demonstrates an aptitude for the genre and could very well be one to keep an eye on.
Boots on the Ground review by Kat Hughes, August 2017.
Boots on the Ground is currently playing as part of the Horror Channel Frighfest 2017 programme.
