There has been a trend, over the last few years, away from the use of opening credits in films. This allows us to simply get into the story, without being distracted by five minutes worth of names over the opening scenes. Exhibit A eschews any credits, indeed there’s not even a traditional title card. In keeping with the conceit of the film all we see is an evidence marker, identifying what we are about to see as Exhibit A, its source as Murder Scene and its origin as Daughter’s Camcorder. I’ve often quoted Hitchcock’s first law of suspense; give the audience more knowledge than the characters. This is a perfect demonstration of that cinematic law in action; with that one simple card everything that unfolds in the first half hour of this film takes on a different tone. Found footage films are tricky. The only one to maintain its illusion perfectly is Cannibal Holocaust, but Exhibit A comes close. The only moments that ring false are the occasional snatches of a beach scene that, apparently, haven’t been recorded over (this same device also rang false in Cloverfield, though it was much more prevalent there). Otherwise the illusion is perfectly realised, with the cast doing almost all of the camerawork themselves. This can mean that the framing is erratic and shaky, but this isn’t shaky-cam as a stylistic choice so much as it an essential part of the illusion; this family aren’t filmmakers, so their home videos look like home video. The film’s first act introduces the King family; Mum and Dad (Forrest and Cole) and teenage children Joe (Lee) and Judith (Ashworth) as a normal nuclear family. There’s a lot of joking around with the video camera given to Judith as a present, and Dad Andy has good news; he’s got a promotion and the family will be moving to a new, much bigger, house on the coast. Underneath it all is that opening card. It’s clear what’s going to happen, but when, how and why isn’t yet clear, and the tension is excruciating. Though it’s only a short film (just 85 minutes) Exhibit A doesn’t hurry. If anything it could be accused of starting slowly, only gradually do we start to see that something may be amiss in what seems, initially, an almost idyllic family life. This is where the cast comes in. In a film pretending to be found footage any substandard performance can destroy the illusion irrevocably. That doesn’t happen here. Angela Forrest and Oliver Lee are both excellent and entirely real, but their characters do feel slightly like background figures next to Andy and Judith. It’s a real shame that young actress Brittany Ashworth doesn’t appear to have done anything on film since this performance, because it’s a highly impressive piece of work; unaffected even in the most extreme moments of emotion. There’s a real honesty about her work that helps ground the film and the found footage conceit in reality (it also bears mentioning that she’s a pretty good camera operator, at least for the demands of this film). To my utter disbelief, Bradley Cole also seems not have worked on film in the last few years. His performance as Andy is the pivotal piece of the puzzle, if it doesn’t work everything else falls away. Fortunately he is exceptional, fully deserving of the BIFA award nomination the film earned for him. Exhibit A is, at its heart, a portrait of a man suffering (through his own fault) a complete breakdown. Without overacting (in a part that could easily have invited a scenery chomping, eye rolling ‘I’m mad, me’ performance) Cole takes us completely believably through Andy’s downward spiral. It's heartbreaking work, and a real insight into a complex character. The closing twenty minutes of the film are almost unbearable. They unfold in a pressure-cooker atmosphere, trapping you in a situation of unimaginable hideousness. In the quote on the DVD case I called the film’s final scene “The single most harrowing thing I’ve seen since [the rape scene in] Gaspar Noe’s IRREVERSIBLE”. I can stand by that. In a single, static, ten minute take the murders are played out in sickening, if never explicit, detail. Most disturbing is the (improvised?) dialogue; so hideous that it makes your skin crawl. Exhibit A is a film that, in a time when most horror films fling gore at your feet relentlessly but never scare you or stay longer than three seconds in your head, will live in your mind for a long time. It’s a troubling film, in much the same way as some of Michael Haneke’s work, that awful sense of reality means you constantly want to look away. I couldn’t. This is the kind of filmmaking that real movie fans like you and I should be embracing; smart, original cinema that resonates long after the end titles.

This is a REALLY scary film. Not because it's full of monsters or spooky goings-on, but instead it's the dread feeling of watching a man's personality disintegrate under stress, with ghastly results. Andy King is a normal, loving dad of two normal teenagers and a normal, nice wife. It's all very... normal. But when his daughter Judith acquires a video camera, she starts obsessively filming her family - especially her dad as the pressures of family and work life begin to affect his behaviour. To tell you more would spoil things! It's a short film - less than an hour and a half. It's all shot in an intentionally "amateur" way (think 'Blair Witch') and the wobbly shots can sometimes be a little tiresome. But at such a length, the story seldom drags. If, during the first half-hour, you're wondering "where the hell is this going?" then just stick with it a little longer and the clues appear, and you'll be hooked. The last twenty minutes or so are truly horrifying. Not gory or anything, just genuinely disturbing and even quite hard to watch.

There has been a trend, over the last few years, away from the use of opening credits in films. This allows us to simply get into the story, without being distracted by five minutes worth of names over the opening scenes. Exhibit A eschews any credits, indeed there’s not even a traditional title card. In keeping with the conceit of the film all we see is an evidence marker, identifying what we are about to see as Exhibit A, its source as Murder Scene and its origin as Daughter’s Camcorder. I’ve often quoted Hitchcock’s first law of suspense; give the audience more knowledge than the characters. This is a perfect demonstration of that cinematic law in action; with that one simple card everything that unfolds in the first half hour of this film takes on a different tone. Found footage films are tricky. The only one to maintain its illusion perfectly is Cannibal Holocaust, but Exhibit A comes close. The only moments that ring false are the occasional snatches of a beach scene that, apparently, haven’t been recorded over (this same device also rang false in Cloverfield, though it was much more prevalent there). Otherwise the illusion is perfectly realised, with the cast doing almost all of the camerawork themselves. This can mean that the framing is erratic and shaky, but this isn’t shaky-cam as a stylistic choice so much as it an essential part of the illusion; this family aren’t filmmakers, so their home videos look like home video. The film’s first act introduces the King family; Mum and Dad (Forrest and Cole) and teenage children Joe (Lee) and Judith (Ashworth) as a normal nuclear family. There’s a lot of joking around with the video camera given to Judith as a present, and Dad Andy has good news; he’s got a promotion and the family will be moving to a new, much bigger, house on the coast. Underneath it all is that opening card. It’s clear what’s going to happen, but when, how and why isn’t yet clear, and the tension is excruciating. Though it’s only a short film (just 85 minutes) Exhibit A doesn’t hurry. If anything it could be accused of starting slowly, only gradually do we start to see that something may be amiss in what seems, initially, an almost idyllic family life. This is where the cast comes in. In a film pretending to be found footage any substandard performance can destroy the illusion irrevocably. That doesn’t happen here. Angela Forrest and Oliver Lee are both excellent and entirely real, but their characters do feel slightly like background figures next to Andy and Judith. It’s a real shame that young actress Brittany Ashworth doesn’t appear to have done anything on film since this performance, because it’s a highly impressive piece of work; unaffected even in the most extreme moments of emotion. There’s a real honesty about her work that helps ground the film and the found footage conceit in reality (it also bears mentioning that she’s a pretty good camera operator, at least for the demands of this film). To my utter disbelief, Bradley Cole also seems not have worked on film in the last few years. His performance as Andy is the pivotal piece of the puzzle, if it doesn’t work everything else falls away. Fortunately he is exceptional, fully deserving of the BIFA award nomination the film earned for him. Exhibit A is, at its heart, a portrait of a man suffering (through his own fault) a complete breakdown. Without overacting (in a part that could easily have invited a scenery chomping, eye rolling ‘I’m mad, me’ performance) Cole takes us completely believably through Andy’s downward spiral. It's heartbreaking work, and a real insight into a complex character. The closing twenty minutes of the film are almost unbearable. They unfold in a pressure-cooker atmosphere, trapping you in a situation of unimaginable hideousness. In the quote on the DVD case I called the film’s final scene “The single most harrowing thing I’ve seen since [the rape scene in] Gaspar Noe’s IRREVERSIBLE”. I can stand by that. In a single, static, ten minute take the murders are played out in sickening, if never explicit, detail. Most disturbing is the (improvised?) dialogue; so hideous that it makes your skin crawl. Exhibit A is a film that, in a time when most horror films fling gore at your feet relentlessly but never scare you or stay longer than three seconds in your head, will live in your mind for a long time. It’s a troubling film, in much the same way as some of Michael Haneke’s work, that awful sense of reality means you constantly want to look away. I couldn’t. This is the kind of filmmaking that real movie fans like you and I should be embracing; smart, original cinema that resonates long after the end titles. Sam Inglis - 24 FPS