The Last Footage, coming from Myanmar from director Arkar Soe Oo, is a film that has a lot going for it, but it also squanders others, coming out a mixed but positive reaction. But even with that, it’s a film I’m very glad to have checked out among the Fantasia Film Festival 2026 lineup.
I love to see other countries’ myths and legends, leading to folklore and folk horror. Getting into the outdoors and wild places in a region is something that strikes deep, hits that uncomfortable level of unknown terror. In no way is this meant to sound Xenophobic, but seeing what scares the local populations hits their histories and cultural wounds, of legends passed down. What is scary and how? As scary as the deep, otherworldly woods of our country (the Appalachians hold their secrets), films like Indonesia’s Impetigore go deeper and harder, with a longer history seeping into the roots of the trees and the people. For the Last Footage, written, directed, produced, edited, and starring Arkar Soe Oo, a set of characters head into the woods of Myanmar (to those who need a geography check-up, it’s between India and Thailand, formerly known as Burma) and meet their own legends and lore. It doesn’t work out well for them. It is found footage, with the note that it was recorded and found in recording lenses. That doesn’t bode well for anyone.
And it mostly works, although not with some hangups. The setup is a tad it familiar: a group of friends, one of their uncles suffering from loss, a 9-year-old, and their chatty bus driver heads out into the deep woods to an abandoned rubber plantation one of them has inherited (a ding is taking a very long time to get going there, I swear Oo goes over the setup like three times). Along the way, they get lost and find their way to a witch’s hut, where she does the equivalent of reading the Latin in a bunch of Evil Dead-looking books. It gets sufficiently spooky and messed up as a child vanishes and a whole lot of nastiness comes to terrorize. I loved the witch; the actress, Mo Khum, has a great energy living up the flick.
Oo shoots it incredibly well, keeping the camera in lens concept to create long unbroken takes of the terror as the people and creatures and the horrors in the darkness come in and around in a wonderful choreography, moving through and around the large spaces. It’s a good skill to keep not only everything moving but shooting in mostly darkness, seemingly lit by candles (and some mystery supernatural sources) and not losing visuals or control.
When it works, it’s rather scary, getting up close and personal with everyone and everything, watching as they get more and more over their heads and unable to extract themselves from the darkness of the woods. Often, Last Footage really gets rolling, especially in the last push, and man it’s effective. I can see the detail and love Oo put into it, and it shows.
However, as cool as the monster looks, and damn it’s a great design, the actor in the suit cannot convey terror in stage presence; the same with a few of her creatures around. When in the distance or moving through, heck yes. But when seeing him moving up close, he’s the biggest scare actor in the haunted house put into the cool suit, but doesn’t know how to move it. Additionally, with too many characters, while they start with their basic traits, eventually they all mush into one: all of screaming people, flailing about the woods. I fully lost track of who was who, and they devolved to a cacophony of cries.
Finally, there’s a great touch in that, since this is supposedly accessed from automatic uploads from the glasses, before this story gets going X jumps through a series of smaller stories pulled from other glasses. Some funny, some scary as well, but essentially effective 5-second microfilms. (wanna know something cool? YouTube has a whole ton of random uploads like this you can find. Some odd stuff there, and here. )
The Last Footage builds, after a slow start, into a ball of wild intensity and inertia of the terror in the woods and what stalks them, whether it be witches, zombies, or massive deer gods. Startling effective in doses, and overall a great time; check out rkar Soe Oo’s The Last Footage.