THE ANDY BAKER TAPE (2021)

Streaming on Tubi!
Directed by Bret Lada.
Written by Dustin Fontaine, Bret Lada.
Check out the trailer here!!

Just as an online food critic named Jeff Blake (Bret Lada) is auditioning to get his show syndicated on the Food Network, he discovers he has a brother. So while on the road, tasting the local cuisine, Jeff meets up with his estranged brother Andy Baker (Dustin Fontaine), who turns out to be a strange fellow. Andy ends up convincing Jeff to tag along on this trip and Jeff agrees, wanting to get his brother better. But it turns out Andy is much stranger than Jeff expects.

Are the actors successfully acting like they aren’t acting?
One of the stronger points of THE ANDY BAKER TAPE is that both the lead actors are very convincing. Blake is your typical on air personality, who never really turns that side of his persona off. He feel disingenuous, but I feel that is just a part of his character. Later in the film, when things get serious, you see that façade fall, and Blake (played by co-writer/director Bret Lada) gets to show a more genuine side. At the same time, Andy (Dustin Fontaine) feels like a real person as well. He’s awkward and weird, but doesn’t go over the top. He feels like a sad, lonely person who simply lacks the social skills and experience with others that Blake has, which turns out to be one of the main conflicts of the movie.

Does the footage found seem authentic and untouched by additional production?
For the most part, THE ANDY BAKER TAPE feels authentic. It’s all edited together on the same camera, which gets passed around from Blake to Andy throughout the narrative, which gives a natural flow to the shifting POV’s of the story. There is no additional music added to the film, which makes it feel all the more realistic.

Why don’t they just drop the camera and get the hell out of there?
Blake is filming his own documentary as he travels across a few states to go meet Andy, stopping at various famous local restaurants and trying their food for his show. So because he has a separate agenda with the camera, there’s no need to drop it and run. Also, the way the story plays out, Blake really doesn’t know how dangerous Andy is until late in the game. There are also moments where Andy steals the camera and films his own stuff, all of which, is done with a single camera.

Is there an up-nose BLAIR WITCH confessional or a REC-drag away from the camera?
No, for the most part, the film doesn’t ape anything from BLAIR WITCH or REC. It does feel a whole hell of a lot like a less effective version of CREEP. I’ll get into that a little later on.

Does anything actually happen? Is the lead in too long and the payoff too short?
While it is pretty apparent early on, Andy is bad news, it takes an awful long time for the truly twisted stuff to happen. The ending is resonant, but it takes a long time to get there. There are clues peppered in throughout the narrative, but there is an awful lot of movie spent on Blake and Andy getting to know one another. Then they get into a disagreement or Blake notices something off about Andy, but then, with Blake wanting to get to know his long-lost brother, Blake lets Andy back in, even though most people would have left his ass on the side of the road. It speaks to Blake’s pushover nature, as he gives into Andy’s advances over and over. Again, it’s a lot like the relationship between the two characters in the far superior CREEP.

Does the film add anything to the subgenre and is it worth watching?
If I hadn’t seen CREEP, CREEP 2, and the CREEP TAPES, I think I would have liked THE ANDY BAKER TAPE a whole lot more. Having seen those films, THE ANDY BAKER TAPE feels very derivative of Mark Duplass’ excellent found footage series. It is a story of two men getting to know one another and how one person can take advantage of the other’s altruistic nature. I feel in order to distinguish this film from the CREEP series, a third character, maybe a girlfriend of Blake’s or maybe even a manager, could have been introduced, to shake up the dynamic between the two brothers. As is, this feels too close to the themes played with in CREEP to be good on its own. It’s a well-acted movie with some shocking moments, but it treads very familiar grounds and it’s impossible to notice if you’re a found footage fan.