JP Nunez
Found footage is a double-edged sword. When used well, the format can greatly enhance a movie, but it often ends up being little more than a tired gimmick. You simply never know what you’re going to get with these films, but in a paradoxical way, that’s what makes them so intriguing. The potential is always there, and that’s usually enough to catch my attention. So when I first heard about What Happened to Dorothy Bell? I was immediately hooked. The plot synopsis sounded pretty interesting, and I was curious to see how the movie would use its found-footage format. I had no idea how it would turn out, but I knew one thing: I couldn’t wait to see it.
What Happened to Dorothy Bell? was written and directed by Danny Villanueva Jr., and it stars Asya Meadows, Michael Hargrove, Lisa Wilcox, Arlene Armone Bibbs, and Steven Alonte. The film follows Ozzie, a young woman struggling with her mental health. She realizes that a traumatic incident involving her grandmother, the titular Dorothy Bell, has contributed greatly to her troubles, so she decides to investigate the matter and document all her findings.
She goes to the library where her grandmother killed herself, and once there, she tries to communicate with the old woman’s spirit. As you can probably guess, this foray into the supernatural has some unexpectedly dangerous consequences. Ozzie soon learns the truth about poor Dorothy Bell, and she comes face to face with the malevolent force that took over the titular character’s life.
What Happened to Dorothy Bell? opens with a home movie from Ozzie’s childhood, and it’s the best part of the film. After a few normal family interactions, a young Ozzie picks up the camera and plays hide and seek with her grandmother, and from the moment this girl begins walking around the house, you can just about feel a chill slither down your spine.
This place is eerie as hell, and writer/director Danny Villanueva Jr. makes the most of the found-footage format. Since Ozzie is carrying the camera, you can’t see her, so you have a first-person perspective on her search for her grandmother. It’s almost like you’re walking around the house yourself, and it perfectly captures the uncanny feeling you get when you’re all alone in a creepy place.
Then, when the girl finds Dorothy, What Happened to Dorothy Bell? gets even better. You get enough of a glimpse into this terrible event to understand why it had such a long-lasting effect on Ozzie, but it still leaves you with a ton of questions. You’re not entirely sure how it all played out, and you have absolutely no idea what could’ve possessed the poor woman (maybe literally!). All you know is that something was horribly wrong with her, and that mystery is utterly captivating.
As I said, it’s the best scene in the movie, so from there, it’s pretty much all downhill. Once we jump to the present, What Happened to Dorothy Bell? slows down considerably, and until the final 10 minutes or so, we don’t get anything nearly as riveting as that opening. Instead, the bulk of this story relies primarily on its lead character, and unfortunately, she’s not up to the task.
To be fair, she’s not bad. Actor Asya Meadows does a fine job in the role, so if there were other people around to help lighten the load, Ozzie would’ve been a great lead. But there aren’t. By and large, the side characters just pop up for a few minutes every now and then, so this film is basically all Ozzie all the time. She needs to be genuinely captivating, but she’s not quite there. I got bored with her fairly quickly, so I simply couldn’t bring myself to care about her or her story.
Along similar lines, my apathy towards this character also sapped the horror of almost all its effectiveness. As I often say, if you’re not scared for someone, you almost certainly won’t be scared of the things tormenting them, and that’s exactly what happens here. Sure, there can be exceptions if the frights are extraordinary, but these are fairly pedestrian.
For example, we see lights turn on and off, we hear loud noises, and there are a few objects that seem to move by themselves. It’s all fairly standard stuff, and when you combine it with the lackluster lead character, you get a one-two punch that’s just about fatal for a movie like What Happened to Dorothy Bell?.
All that being said, I do have to acknowledge that the last 10 minutes or so are pretty fun. I don’t want to ruin the film’s surprises, so I’ll just say that the horror goes in a direction I didn’t foresee when I pressed play on my screener. It’s much more brutal than your typical ghost story, and despite my indifference towards Ozzie, I still had a good time with it.
Unfortunately, though, it’s not nearly enough to save the movie. It’s too little too late, so even with a strong ending, I’m sad to report that I walked away from What Happened to Dorothy Bell? quite disappointed. The setup is so good I couldn’t wait to see how the rest of it would play out, but nothing in the film lives up to that fantastic opening. Sure, there are some good building blocks here, like Asya Meadows’s lead performance and the hard-hitting finale, but there’s also a lot missing, and those missing pieces just bring the movie down too much.
What Happened to Dorothy Bell? had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 22, and it played again at the festival on September 25.
