MIND BODY SPIRIT (2023)

Streaming on Tubi from Welcome Villain Films!
Directed by Alex Henes, Matthew Merenda.
Written by Alex Henes, Matthew Merenda, Topher Hendricks.
Check out the trailer here!!

Anya (Sarah J. Bartholomew) has moved across country after inheriting her estranged grandmother’s house. Considering herself a healer, Anya attempts to start a YouTube channel focusing on yoga and wellness. But while filming her first video, Anya discovers a secret door behind a bookcase, leading to her grandmother’s secret pantry, filled with candles, dried goods, altars, and a journal full of what Anya believes to be spiritual guidance. Desperate for some kind of direction, Anya shapes her channel to focus on reading from the journal and following its directions to spiritual enlightenment. Unbeknownst to Anya, her grandmother’s spirit still resides in the house and the intentions mapped out in her journal are much more insidious than Anya understands.

Are the actors successfully acting like they aren’t acting?
Since most of the film focuses solely on Sarah J. Bartholomew as Anya, it’s important that she is likable and relatable. I found her to be so, but your mileage may vary depending on how much spiritualism you can take. Some people find that sort of mindset insufferable, but I found Bartholomew to play Anya as personable. There are a few times she messes up and she sort of laughs at herself which won me over. Anya is a sad soul, sort of flailing in the wind and trying to find her way in life. When she finds her grandmother’s journal, she desperately clings to it. Anya feels like a fully developed character and one worth following. The other actors Madi Bready, who plays Anya’s only friend in California and a fellow influencer, and Anna Knigge, who plays Anya’s concerned mother, both feel genuine and play their part as important secondary characters who are attempting to help Anya through all of this.

Does the footage found seem authentic and untouched by additional production (which means there is no omniscient editor making multiple edits between cameras or an invisible orchestra providing music)?
There is no opening blurb explaining how this footage was attained or anything like that. All of that information is basically given to us through the narrative captured on film. Basically, all of this film has been recorded with Anya’s computer camera being the lead camera source. This leads to some tricky camerawork so that the necessary information can be seen. There are times that the camera rotates at a 360 degree angle or is picked up by some unseen entity and carried around the house while Anya is asleep. These are cheats, but work within the world of the story, so they sort of work. The 360 degree angle rotation is used a few times and it may be a few times too many. There are also a few times where the computer turns on without Anya knowing in the middle of the night, which is more problematic, since we all knowing working a computer alone is something old folks, dead or alive, have trouble doing.

Edits occur as if this were a series of YouTube videos playing one after another. The film has fun and makes its own commercials to play in between the scenes and there is a countdown to when the ad occurs that appears in the bottom corner. These are fun touches that aids in selling the authenticity of the videos. In terms of music, there are subtle musical cues occasionally throughout the film that intensify as the story goes on. While this definitely takes away from the authenticity of the found footage motif, where everything we are seeing should be in the scene, it is much more subtle in MIND BODY SPIRIT than in most found footagers. Still, I feel the film would have been more effective without the musical cues.

Why don’t they just drop the camera and get the hell out of there?
Anya views her journey of reading the book as the direction she wants to go with her YouTube channel. She is documenting this journey warts and all to track her progress to get to what she thinks is a higher level of understanding of herself. So she is using her videos as a personal journal—a modern translation of the teachings she is gleaning from her grandmother’s journal.

Is there an up-nose BLAIR WITCH confessional or a REC-drag away from the camera?
There is one up close and personal scene reminiscent of Heather’s snotty nose scene from BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, but it is different enough that it doesn’t feel like a direct rip-off.

Does anything actually happen? Is the lead in too long and the payoff too short?
What impressed me about MIND BODY SPIRIT was that it starts right off the bat with the finding of the grandmother’s journal, so the spooky stuff starts pretty much from the get go. There are a few lulls after the journal is discovered, where we get to know Anya through her discussions with the camera and conversations she has with her mother and friend. But for the most part, the supernatural stuff is peppered in throughout pretty evenly with things snowballing quickly in the last twenty minutes. The payoff, though predictable, was again evenly paced, so you don’t just get a big reveal in the last seconds like many lesser found footagers.

Does the film add anything to the subgenre and is it worth watching?
MIND BODY SPIRIT is a found footage version of HEREDITARY where a woman finds out about a close, yet estranged relative who is deeply enmeshed with the occult. Much of the scenes are repetitive and feel like bits and pieces of films we’ve seen before. The use of yoga and spiritualism as a central theme is new and there is one especially effective scene where Anya cleanses herself by swallowing a string and purging herself of what ails her that was unique and quite gross and shocking. I found MIND BODY SPIRIT to be a solid entry into the found footage genre. It doesn’t offer much new, but presents itself in a mostly authentic, personable, and occasionally disturbing way.