MISSING 411... is a film. Thing. But kind of good?

[JasonPratt]

Anyone who has been following the forum's "What are we reading now?" thread for the past several months, will have occasionally skipped over a few of my text walls where I talk about my impressions while reading David Paulides' collection of special missing-person cases, Missing 411. These are a series of cases, continuing today, where people vanish in the woods under unusual circumstances, and are either never found, or are found dead but in very odd ways, or are found alive in very odd ways without a clear memory of what they were doing while gone. About half the cases involve kids under 10, and maybe around half of those involve kids under 5. (One book shifts the focus to urban disappearances of college-age people, mostly men, from urban locations who are found later dead in bodies of water under strange circumstances.)

Although there were times I thought DP was salting things too heavily, his work has caught the attention of dedicated rescue groups and personnel, and (for better or for worse) his books do serve as a researched, if ad hoc, collection of primary source material on these strange cases.

I'll add here that DP discovered these cases while researching Native American Bigfoot lore, and when he started publishing his books he thought they were Bigfoot abductions, but in recent years he has shifted to a more agnostic stance on their cause(s), while vaguely nodding in the direction of... bigfoot alien fairies, maybe?

Anyway, last year (2016) he crowdfunded a theatrical film showcasing a handful of these cases, and took it on the festival rounds to fish for a distributor. I guess the fish didn't bite, because the film has now been released self-published, in effect, and can only be legitimately bought through the North American Bigfoot Search website. Here's the link to the Blu-Ray: http://www.nabigfootsearch.com/catalog/item/6180213/10328140.htm

As a bit of a fan, I bought the Blu out of curiosity and watched it Tuesday night. It's a bare-bone production, without even any menus: the film starts up immediately on loading into the player, and when it's done it just quits to the player's menu (if there is one). I'm not entirely sure it even has chapters!

But it's a gorgeous looking film, shot with some real artistry, especially in its B-roll scenery shots.

The film, which runs a little over 90 minutes, focuses waaaaaaaaay more than the books do: all the cases are children, who went missing in the Rocky mountains ranging from Colorado through Idaho to the north Pacific coast. Two cases, including the main framing case, date relatively recently (2015 for the main case, 2013 if I recall correctly for the other one). Two cases date back to the 50s and 30s. One case dates from the 70s. A little more material is discussed but not a lot. I recognized most of them from the books.

The seriously weird elements in the cases are toned down a lot farther than I was expecting, in favor of concentrating on the impact these cases have had on the surviving families and searchers. I respect that choice because DP has often indicated a lot of sympathetic grief for the loved ones of those who went missing. "Survivorman" Lee Stroud (who has been connected with Bigfoot searching recently, although this isn't noted) shows up a few times to comment on a case, and to help give some physical context for just what the 2-year-old in the case was supposed to have done somehow. (Stroud couldn't do it.) One of the missing boys survived, and is interviewed (as an old man now, I mean), which I thought was a good touch although not very helpful (because he couldn't remember anything about what happened). There are re-enactors for some cases, and news footage for others. I have to say I thought a few portions of the interviews for the main case (the one that frameworks the whole film) seemed a little staged; even if they happened to be real, I don't think including them in the final cut was a good idea. (The parents of one of the victims learns that the film crew is interviewing one of the mother's friends, and there's some offscreen drama about this.)

In case you're wondering, Bigfoot is mentioned only once that I recall, in a totally offhanded way; and also seen in a trivial way as a decal for a brand of sporting goods in the back window of a truck belonging to the father of one of the victims. No attempt is made to tie the disappearances to anything specifically unusual: they're just weird disappearances of kids, period. 3D maps helpfully show relative positioning of elements in the cases, both horizontally and vertically.

I can't say I'd recommend buying a copy of the film if you're not a fan of the series already, but as an bare introduction to the topic it could be interesting. Its rewatch value is necessarily low, except for the great ultra-high def cinematography. If the topic sounds interesting, it's certainly worth a rental or a watch if it shows up on Prime or Netflix eventually.