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Haunted Ulster Live is a new movie coming out to Screambox. It plays off of the found footage genre by taking place entirely through the camera lenses of a news crew covering the spectacle of a local "haunted house" during Halloween. It's actually somewhat similar to the recently released Late Night With The Devil in a few regards there, though there is more interaction with the cameras here.
Leading the crew is the head reporter and executive producer Gerry Burns. He is a past-his-prime newsman still out trying to get the next great story. His number two is Michelle, kind of a sidelines reporter, if you will, who covers what is going on with a team of paranormal investigators outside in a truck. She also is tasked with the thankless duty of talking to the gathered crowd outside the home and getting their reactions. Together, Gerry and Michelle work to get to the bottom of the suspected haunting, while also fighting to keep the event on-air.
Inside the house is a mother and her two children, an elder son and a younger daughter. They have recently been upset by strange occurrences in their abode and have invited the news team and their experts inside. It's not long before everyone figures out that whatever is going on in their home seems to be centered on the young girl named Rose.
Will Gerry and Michelle start taking what is happening around them seriously in time to save Rose from whatever seems attached to her?
TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS:
+ Haunted Ulster Live starts off with a really basic and simple premise: A "found footage" / live broadcast movie detailing a news team covering a haunted house as part of their Halloween festivities. It's by no means a bad launching point for a film, but it doesn't make you salivate over its potential, either.
Fortunately, the movie is very well-written, and as you watch, the tale gets more and more interesting. It builds well from the early going and turns into a downright gripping arc full of intriguing characters, strange mysteries, and red herrings.
By the time Haunted Ulster Live was into its third act, I was all-in on the story and what would become of our protagonists.
+ Speaking of our protagonists, Aimee Richardson and Mark Clancy do great work as Michelle and Gerry. There is, admittedly, some less-than-stellar acting going on around them, but the two of them are our most featured players, and they really sell the goings-on.
Richardson and Clancy make the most of a sub-eighty minute runtime and do a wonderful job carrying the story with their skepticism turning into real and dire belief as the movie goes on. They initially are treating the whole thing as a joke and a chore--especially when the feed is off--but you see them start to believe before your eyes as events transpire. By the end, they are taking everything as seriously as the screenplay needs them to, and it's a treat.
- I hate to call out a movie for being what it is, but for the sake of finding Downs, sometimes I must. And in that regard, you can tell this movie was made on the cheap. Nothing about it looks particularly polished or like tons of care was put into it. The settings seem cheap and easy; as noted above, some of the acting of the secondary characters is weak; and the movie generally sticks to one locale. You can see the lack of budget before your eyes.
And there's nothing wrong with that. Not everything needs to look like it cost a million dollars to make. People without a budget have a right to make movies, too! I've seen inexpensive flicks that are fantastic, and I've sweet some that are... oh, let's just say they aren't so fantastic. Haunted Ulster Live is somewhere in the middle there (closer to the former than the latter), and there's no shame in that.
- It all gets a bit confusing and messy at the very end, let's say the last ten minutes or so, when we are in the "figure out what's happening" stages. I'm not going to lie: if you asked me to explain the ending, I'm not sure the writers would agree with what I got out of it. It's better to be too complex than too simple at times, but I think some of this went over my head.
It also made me start doubting that some of what we saw made any sense, and I'm not talking brief, minor details. I'm sure--or at least I would hope--that everything works out perfectly to the creators behind the scenes, but it was a little above me. It left me with several "But wait... if [X] is true, then how did [Y]?" kinds of questions.
OVERALL
All in all, for its budget and for being a low-key independent found-footage style film, I really enjoyed Haunted Ulster Live. Its warts poke through, sure, but by-and-large, it's a well-told story with solid lead performances. The ending left me a touch bewildered, but honestly? It's better to swing for the fences with a big climax than to lay down a bunt and do something everyone expects. At under eighty minutes and with all that it has going for it, this is an easy recommendation from me.
🍿 SCORE = 64 / 100
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