Investigation 13 (2019)
Screen icon Meg Foster (“Twin Peaks”, They Live) stars in director Krisstian de Lara’s Investigation 13, premiering on digital and DVD this September from Uncork’d Entertainment.
Incorporating traditional narrative story-telling, as well as numerous forms of pioneering technology, including found footage, hand-held cameras, surveillance cameras, and smart glasses, Investigation 13 is a new-age fright-fest chronicling the tale of a group of college science students investigating the urban legend of The Mole Man, an ex-patient said to still be residing within the walls of the Black Grove Asylum. When members of the group start missing, they soon learn that this myth is more real than they thought, making this 13th investigation one they will come to regret.
How many times now have we seen a horror flick where a film crew investigate a haunting/urban legend at a closed/derelict asylum? It’s a scenario that has been done to death and more often than not, the results make for dull and dismal viewing. Director Krisstian de Lara’s Investigation 13 follows the same tired steps with little in the way of anything new added to the mix. Even a last minute plot twist fails to elicit any gasps, because like the rest of the movie, it’s all been done before.
I imagine that this is exactly why films like this get made, offering comfortable, formulaic ‘scares’ for those that simply want more of the same. I don’t, if you’re going to approach a plot arc that’s been done before then please do your utmost to give it a bit of a fresh spin, and aside from the occasional animated sequence, freshness is definitely not on the cards here.
The film alternates between black-and-white footage (the documentary team’s own recordings), and colour for the rest. I get that they had to do this to differentiate between the two, perhaps for the viewer’s benefit, but for this viewer it didn’t really make any sense at all, in fact it all seemed rather pointless.
I couldn’t help noticing that in one of the corridors of the abandoned asylum there’s a primary school kid’s ‘under-the-sea’ painting looming large on one of the walls – not the sort of thing one expects to see in an asylum, and elsewhere an office is showing no signs of dereliction, in fact it looks like it’s simply been borrowed to shoot a couple of scenes – details like these meant that I was unable to buy into the location onscreen being an abandoned asylum. Lack of budget I get, but not even trying to adapt the locations to suit the story is a bit lazy.
The acting is earnest if rather lacking in ability and the production’s evident lack of budget is compensated for by artwork/stills that fill in the back-story to the film’s central character Mole Man (who looks like a member of The Ramones). The animation proves jarring to begin with but ends up being Investigation 13’s saving grace as the live-action segments of Investigation 13 – Meg Foster withstanding – become an increasing chore to sit through.