[Film Review] The Unknowable (2022)

17 Jan

Written By Ariel Powers-Schaub / Senior Contributor & Admin Assistant

Sometimes, as a horror fan, it can feel like we’ve seen everything, and we’re hungry for a new story, some new scares. If that describes you, check out the breath of fresh air that is The Unknowable (2022). It was created by Zachary Donohue, who also brought us the underseen found footage gem The Den (2013), and The Unknowable is available now on YouTube in episodic pieces.

Presented as a faux true crime documentary, The Unknowable runs for about forty minutes, telling the story of a small family who moves into the Mojave Desert in 1948 to try and commune with aliens. Much like stories presented on Unsolved Mysteries (1987-2002) or History Channel documentaries, the story takes surprising turns and leaves the viewer unable to guess what will happen next. What begins as a story about an eccentric family literally following their dreams soon turns into a tale reaching across the whole United States and leaving a trail of dead along the way.

While the story itself is unique, the experimental filmmaking style is what really hooked me. The Unknowable doesn’t have any speaking characters, and is instead narrated by a commanding voice over, steadily explaining the layers that reveal the story. The images in the film are black and white photographs, video clips, and animations that show the characters and dramatize the action that could not be caught on film. The found footage style works perfectly for this story, and it blends enough of what look like real photographs with reenactments to show the story just as a documentary would. There is repetition in imagery and language throughout the film, reminding the viewer what’s going on, as a TV show will do after commercial breaks to assist viewers who just tuned in. In a delightful surprise, there are some YouTube comments asking if The Unknowable is a true story, which makes my found footage loving heart smile. The best found footage makes you ask that question, makes you want to Google the details of the story to see if what you’re watching really happened. Donohue nailed the tone of the true crime documentary so well that it’s hard to tell that this is a fictional story.

Don’t spoil the plot for yourself, take forty minutes and treat yourself to another bite of found footage from Donohue, and watch The Unknowable on YouTube.