BEYOND THE NORTH WOODS: Found Footage Goes Viral

Shout it from the rooftops! With Beyond the North Woods, Minnesota writer-director Lance Todd has revitalized the micro budget found footage horror film. This scrappy, homegrown breakout feature, shot entirely on an iPhone 13 in Duluth, MN for $20,000, takes the genre in trippy new directions – all in a lean hour and ten minutes. 

The Horrors of YouTube

The film follows a YouTuber, Paul (Lance Todd), and his videographer, Angela (Henriette Soderlind), who travel to Duluth to investigate a string of mysterious disappearances for the next episode of their show, Para-Abnormal. Todd‘s wry, broad performance as Paul is a delicious send-up of YouTubers like Logan Paul who profit off of small town tragedy and feed their egos – and bank accounts – in the process (the name choice is well-taken, and the real Paul‘s maligned trip to the so-called “Suicide Forest” clearly influenced the film). As the pair film corny introductions and half-assed interviews with concerned locals, Angela receives strange, portentous phone calls… and Paul drinks heavily from a flask of jungle juice, more concerned about his angles than her potential safety. 

These opening passages masterfully parody their source material, simultaneously setting up twists and twisting the knife into Paul with gleeful ease. Once the gang gets to the woods, things really get going, showing off Todd‘s directing chops through skillful location work and deliciously fun, often very funny performances from his actors, all locals in the Duluth film scene (one, Matt Rasmussen, is known locally as “The King of Halloween” according to the film’s website – a well-earned monicker here).

The choice to shoot on an iPhone is both expeditious and effective, providing ample opportunities to retool familiar imagery (the famed direct-to-camera Blair Witch shot of another ill-fated director apologizing to her crew’s family gets a playful, selfie-mode nod) and match form with function, aiding the actors’ performances in the process. The shoot, of course, quickly goes awry – and not in the way you’d expect – going back to the found footage genre’s roots and playing on its themes of hubris, greed, and the nature of witness, while updating them for a generation raised on TikTok and Christopher Nolan as well as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. 

To go further into the film’s plot and structure would be to give away too many of its pleasures, (it’s only an hour or so long, afterall) so I’ll say no more. Suffice it to say, Todd and his crew have created a minor miracle: a lean, mean, twisty feature with more originality and wit than many of its studio counterparts, done through good old-fashioned teamwork and a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Beyond the North Woods is a spare, down-and-dirty production that succeeds on multiple levels – it’s simple and goes straight for the jugular, yet delivers above and beyond expectations, eventually turning into a sly puzzlebox that fascinates as well as entertains.

Conclusion

In one scene, Paul laments that, though he wanted to be a filmmaker, he’s been reduced to making cheap clickbait and paid promotions for money.  ​​In his director’s statement, Todd calls the film “a horror story about making content.” And yet, Beyond the North Woods offers hope for the opposite outcome: the potential for local, micro-budget filmmaking to reinvigorate even the most familiar of premises, turning content back into art. 

Beyond the North Woods is now available to rent on Vimeo.

Watch Beyond the North Woods