I used to think found footage was one of the greatest things to happen to independent horror.
Seriously.
It was a platform where some broke twenty-something filmmaker with a borrowed camera, three friends, twelve dollars, and a genuinely great fucking story could go out and make something terrifying. The limitations were the aesthetic. The lack of money became part of the language. The Blair Witch Project proved you didn’t need millions of dollars to scare the shit out of somebody.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way filmmakers apparently took the wrong lesson from all of this.
Now the thought of watching another found footage movie makes me fucking cringe because we’ve reached the point where far too many of these movies are made because they can be made rather than because they should be made.
And Robbie Banfitch’s Tinsman Road may be Exhibit Fucking A.
I probably should have known what I was getting into. Banfitch is also responsible for The Outwaters, a movie that I can best describe as the cinematic equivalent of being stranded on a desert island where your only reading material is a stack of circa-1950s books on proper etiquette.
Sure, somebody, somewhere, thought they were doing something important.
Something necessary, even.
Buuuuuuuuut…
I’d still rather eat the books.
And somehow Tinsman Road manages to take that same aggressively self-indulgent approach and stretch it into something even more baffling.
First, Robbie apparently plays “Robbie.”
Fine.
But if you’re going to play yourself in your own movie, here’s an idea:
WHY THE HELL WOULDN’T YOU MAKE YOURSELF EVEN SLIGHTLY LIKABLE OR ENGAGING?
I’m not asking for Indiana Jones here. Give me something. Charisma. Humor. Nervous energy. An interesting personality quirk. A fucking pulse.
Instead, Robbie wanders through this movie looking so completely disconnected from every moment that I spent half the runtime wondering what the fuck he was macro-dosing before Banfitch yelled “action.”
Then again, “action” might be overstating what happens here.
Because…
Fuuuuuuck.
Every. Scene. Lingers.
And lingers.
And lingers.
And…
LINGERS.
A character walks into a room.
We watch.
They stand there.
We watch.
They move something.
We watch.
They contemplate moving something else.
We watch.
Somewhere in the distance, glaciers form, civilizations collapse, my children grow old and begin families of their own, and we’re STILL IN THE FUCKING ROOM.
At some point I became convinced there had to be a guy standing in the back of the theater during test screenings, slowly twirling a handlebar mustache and laughing deviously.
“Yes… YES! Don’t cut away! Another four minutes! Let’s see how long these bastards will stay!”
Because Tinsman Road doesn’t feel edited so much as inflicted.
Maybe this whole thing is actually some elaborate social experiment about the ETIQUETTE of remaining in one’s seat when things get tough.
Holy shit.
Maybe The Outwaters was foreshadowing.
And speaking of things that probably needed somebody—anybody—to step in and say “Robbie… maybe don’t”…
Robbie should not have cast his own mother.
Look, I get it.
I really do.
You’re making a deeply personal micro-budget movie. You use the people around you. There’s something sweet about involving your family in your art.
But…
Damn.
Some of those scenes are downright painful.
And absolutely not in the way they’re intended to be.
There’s a difference between raw naturalism and watching someone struggle through material while you desperately avoid making eye contact with the person sitting next to you.
Tinsman Road occasionally crosses that line, turns around, waves goodbye, and keeps fucking walking.
Did I mention the lingering scenes?
Because Jesus Christ, THE SCENES FUCKING LINGER.
There’s slow-burn horror.
There’s atmospheric horror.
There’s meditative cinema.
And then there’s apparently pointing a camera at something and refusing to yell “CUT” because eventually the audience might develop Stockholm syndrome.
Sure, the last few minutes finally pick up.
Things happen!
There are developments!
There’s momentum!
There’s something resembling the movie I’ve apparently been waiting two fucking hours to watch!
Unfortunately, by then I couldn’t remember which parts I’d fallen asleep during.
OH WAIT.
IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER.
Because for roughly the first hour and a half of this two-hour endurance test, NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENS.
And I don’t mean “nothing happens” in the obnoxious way people sometimes dismiss slow cinema where there’s actually a ton of character development and thematic groundwork happening beneath the surface.
I mean Tinsman Road desperately needs someone standing over the editing timeline asking:
“DO WE NEED THIS?”
And then asking it again.
And again.
And again.
Preferably while holding a machete.
In summation, Tinsman Road represents damn near everything that found-footage detractors get right when they complain about the genre.
A slogging beginning.
A slogging middle.
Flat, weak characters.
Endless stretches of dead air mistaken for atmosphere.
Scenes allowed to continue long after they’ve communicated everything they possibly could.
And the desperate, desperate need for a heavy hand in the editing room.
Not even a heavy hand.
The hand of fucking God.
Come down from the heavens, grab that mouse, open Premiere and start ripple-deleting entire geological eras from this thing.
There’s probably an interesting 75-minute horror movie buried somewhere inside Tinsman Road.
Unfortunately, somebody forgot to excavate it.
Instead, we’re given a two-hour reminder that accessibility isn’t necessarily a virtue. Yes, found footage means almost anybody can grab a camera and make a horror movie.
That’s wonderful.
That’s democratizing.
That’s exciting.
But Tinsman Road also demonstrates the terrifying flip side of that equation:
Sometimes the fact that you can make a movie isn’t sufficient evidence that you should.
Damn.
This one was about as much fun as swapping your Fleshlight for a blender.
At least the blender knows when to fucking stop.
