Mr Jones (2013)

A young couple goes to a cabin in the Californian hills to shoot a documentary (never heard that one before). They have some personal issues (of course) but all of that is forgotten when they happen upon a strange cabin filled with grotesque scarecrows and realize that they have stumbled upon the legendary Mr Jones, a Banksy type sculptor who has been an enigma in the art scene for many years, causing nightmares to the people that has his sculptures. But when they start to dig deeper they realize that Mr Jones might just be building the fucked up pieces of art as protection against something, to hold something back...

Mr Jones has an exceptional concept and the sculptures/scarecrows are awesome pieces of art (I wouldn't mind owning one myself, not that my girlfriend would ever let me display one and I understand her). The first fortyfive-ish minutes or so are excellent but it is when we slowly start to be shown why Mr Jones is doing what he does this that things start to fall apart. A bit of SPOILERY talk now: There is some talk about the border between the living world and the dreaming world being a bad place and while the concept is sound enough and quite intriguing, this means that you the audience is subjected to a lot of random dreamlike imagery and while nicely shot (quite a few cool shots of the crows) it is just too random to be more than just interesting. I like it when horror goes into slightly Lovecraftian territory and Mr Jones shows off some fleeting images and odd sounds, I just don't like it as much when it is drenched through a dreamhaze. End of SPOILERS. It just doesn't hold up, a bit more straightforward horror here would have done wonders here. Still, the ending, while pretty ambigious, ties everything up fairly well.

Oh, it's found footage as well (until the final act. Sort of) which will put some people off.

Flawed but interesting and incredibly well designed, Mr Jones is worth your while. It's just that it could have been so much better but the filmmakers wanted something else.