Found footage horror is a strange beast. It can elicit raw emotion, adrenaline, and an ultra realistic surge of dread that can only be captured with this type of filmmaking. But it’s a subgenre beaten to death by monotony and oversaturation. All you need is a camera and a few thousand bucks to direct your very own Blair Witch Project. In reality, you’ll probably conjure up a boring mess of shadowy corridors and turbulent camera work. Your audience will become sick and confused as to what’s actually happening on screen.
Enter the team of media studies students in British director Warren Dudley’s The Cutting Room. Raz — portrayed by the cheeky, often hilarious, and boyishly handsome Parry Glasspool — takes control of the group’s year-end documentary project early on. He commands his two peers, Charlie (Lucy-Jane Quinlan), who masks her obvious adoration of Raz with bitterness towards his crass sense of humour, and the adorable third wheeler, Jess (Lydia Orange). They’re assigned the task by creepy professor Mark Kallis (TJ Herbert), who’s a little too kind to the girls and suspiciously rude to Raz. The trio decides on cyberbullying for their subject. A timely idea indeed, sure to make their would-be film emotionally manipulative and controversial. Professor Kallis recommends the team investigate the disappearance of Rosie Clarke, a local teenage girl who fled home after falling victim to cyberbullying….
THE HOLLYWOOD REVIEW 
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