Review by Pete Christopher
Found footage film have become a major subgenre of the horror film mosaic. The pinnacle was Followed, which became the #1 movie in the country during pandemic showing the real and reel power of horror films. Now its time to settle back and enjoy the myriad new works in this area.
Jeremiah Kipp’s The Nain Rouge Murders (filmed during pandemic, 2020) is a short news report/documentary style film exploring a demon that appears during a parade in Detroit. The Nain Rouge or Red Dwarf appears at the time of this maigre gras style parade and people disappear. As many as 4000 according to “the facts.”
Produced by Jeremiah Kipp & Ari Rossen, written by Joe Fiorillo, and marvelously edited by Katie Dillon, Nain Rouge has a slick feel to it but still allows plenty of shaky cam and naturalistic acting to shine through.
The featured realistic “accounts” by Jim True-Frost, Ari Rossen, Suzette Gunn, Larry Mihlon, Sydney Morgan, Ashley Noel Jones, and Silvia Dionicio allowed us to suspend disbelief even further and immerse ourselves in this film and even start to believe it. Kipp’s clever combing of actual parade footage and “eye witness” accounts of dwarf sightings, and some really clever editing to make it look like the demon walks among us, allows us to offer a film of this nature the best compliment … “I thought it was real … for a while.”
The Nain Rouge Murders, while an excellent appetizer as a short film, is definitely fodder for feature length. Here’s to Kipp deciding to hunt for the dwarf again.
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