STOKER HILLS attempts to not be your average found footage movie and the result is somewhere in the middle. It opens with a lecture hall covering filmmaking, with the professor being played by the Candyman himself, Tony Todd. His filmmaker students guess his favorite directors, but also verbalize their pitches for their own projects. Erica, Ryan, and Jake are the three we are going to follow as they express excitement over their zombie hookers concept which they believe will lead to a pop culture phenomenon like a certain zombie TV series. There’s very much a typical bro attitude here with an undeniable sense of privilege that even the professor gets annoyed by. While shooting their project, Erica gets abducted by a dark figure in a car and the boys chase after them. STOKER HILLS switches things up a bit by splitting the footage up with a traditional narrative format involving two detectives watching the footage we see and trying to follow their footsteps in locating the missing filmmakers.

Before you can say Cannibal Holocaust, this one doesn’t anywhere near hit the mark that Holocaust does. The 1980 Italian cult classic felt fresh as the footage came off as raw and so real that the filmmakers eventually found themselves in court as it was believed that some of the actors were actually killed. While both involve found footage viewed by onscreen characters trying to locate missing filmmakers, STOKER HILLS goes for a more campy angle. The detectives are clearly noir tropes, quite silly and comparable to Donnie Wahlberg in Dead Silence. The deliberate nature of the story arcs and cinematography showcases a movie that’s attempting to be self-aware but still takes itself too seriously to be tongue in cheek. The ending can be figured out pretty early on due to some creative choices made throughout. 

It’s questionable if STOKER HILLS will find a fanbase after the catchy title wears off. While the premise sounds fun and the small role for Tony Todd can be marketable, the movie doesn’t quite reach out enough to stand out amongst the several other options to stream. 

STOKER HILLS has ambition to admire but doesn’t hit the mark to stand out in the variety of much better-found footage movies. STOKER HILLS will be available in Theaters and On Demand on January 14, 2022.

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Jovy Skol

Jovy grew up loving all kinds of horror movies which is ironic because his parents hated them. CANDYMAN still scares the shit out of him and it doesn’t help that he lives in the Chicago suburbs. He loves venturing into lesser-known exploitation films of the 70s and being introduced to new movies. Along with movies, Jovy loves horror video-games and books, including comics. Some of his favorite franchises include SILENT HILL, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and the RESIDENT EVIL games.

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