Sometimes I dream about packing it all in for a month and going to live in a quiet, remote wooded area, where I can write the Great Canadian Novel. Or just a novel. I don’t want to aim TOO high. Then I watch a movie like Mr. Jones, from our pals at Anchor Bay, and I realize, I’m not going anywhere.
Written and directed by Karl Mueller, the film is the story about a young couple Scott and Penny (Jon Foster and Sarah Jones) who move to a secluded cabin in the woods for a year, where he can work on a nature film. However, things start to get uber-creepy when the two discover that they live not far from Mr. Jones, a reclusive artist whose totem-polesque sculptures were briefly all the rage in the art world. Scott decides to make a film about Mr. Jones, and horror ensues.
Mr. Jones is a unique take on the found footage type of film, though it doesn’t necessarily fall into that category. Instead, it’s as though we’re watching a completed documentary that doesn’t always make sense. However, even though it’s certainly confusing at time, director Mueller’s visual sense really helps make the film worth watching. I’ve seen some comparisons to David Lynch in other reviews of Mr. Jones, and while the film isn’t quite up to Lynch’s standards of surrealism, it’s still a fair compliment, seeing as both director’s clearly enjoy playing with reality and the dream world.
While Mr. Jones doesn’t offer up too many answers to the questions it poses (what’s real life? what’s fantasy who is Mr. Jones, really?), it does have strong performances and a very cool, trippy vibe going throughout its 90 minute run time. Meanwhile, its horror relies more on that vibe rather than blood and guts, which is a nice change from other genre flicks.
Check it out from the comfort of a home far away from any wooded areas.
