Dark Figures (2020) is a found footage movie done with surprisingly high video quality for the genre. Directed and written by Alex Tait in his feature-film directorial debut, Dark Figures was made to look as though shot on modern-day cellphones but introduced some subtle and effective special effects to create the mysticism for capturing the film’s killer — an ancient magic force the lives on native land. Billed as a found footage tape lost since 2012, Dark Figures shows that not only is it unsafe to enter the woods, but it is apparently unsafe to do any kind of desert camping either.

A group of friends — Mia (Shelby Lyn), Hanna (Kelly McCart), Brad (Dan Nufer), Jay (Otis Bassett), and Berry (Ben Scattone) — go on a weekend hiking trip to the Coronado National Forest in Arizona with the goal of reaching Native American ruins that they can document for their college class. Taking a few days to hike to, the friends experience the highs of getting closer to nature, but unfortunately, the lows of fear as one by one the group begins to experience deadly injuries. Eventually, they find that they are being watched and hunted by both a mysterious, ancient demon that possesses people as well as the native tribe who worships this shadowy dark figure.

The first third of Dark Figures felt like sitting through someone’s boring vacation video, comprised of mostly B-roll of random roads, inauthentic banter between actors trying to play long-time friends, and expositional overtures that were obvious foreshadows to upcoming events — see every camping horror movie’s reference to no cellphone service, losing the map, etc. Dark Figures felt the most like any camping trip I have been on than any movie I have seen tough, showing the difficulty in setting up a fire, run-ins with non-leave-no-trace-behind people, and capturing the Coronado National Forest beautifully even without theatrical sweeping or aerial shots of the landscape.

The camera angle may have changed viewpoints every now and again due to there being multiple cameras utilized by the characters, but the movie never lost coherency, became hard to follow, nor broke character as a found footage film. I was only brought back to reality every once in a great while due to the props and wigs that looked un-weathered and not ancient at all, and of course due to the special effects, which is something that is usually not found in found footage movies. These are very minor gripes about the film because I thought that the acting was great otherwise, and though nothing spectacular happened horrifically or directorially, I enjoyed this movie as a camping enthusiast. Though not so much as a horror enthusiast.

While the movie does fall into The Blair With Project (1999) trap in that the premise is so similar and therefore there is no way to escape the comparison, Dark Figures doesn’t necessarily feel like a knock off of TBWP and stands on its own two feet, though unfortunately, is far and away from surpassing or even meeting that groundbreaking horror classic. Be sure to watch until after the credits roll for director Tait’s final say on the story in an after-credits scene that I personally think the movie could have done without, but is there all the same. If you were a fan of Head Count (2018) you should also enjoy Dark Figures, which is pretty much a found-footage version of that movie. Dark Figures is available on VOD and DVD for your camping horror pleasure.

MOVIE RATING — 6 out of 10