{"id":22288,"date":"2016-09-13T13:02:31","date_gmt":"2016-09-13T17:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=22288"},"modified":"2016-09-13T03:08:11","modified_gmt":"2016-09-13T07:08:11","slug":"population-zero-2016-frightfest-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/13\/population-zero-2016-frightfest-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Population Zero (2016) [FrightFest 2016]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/PopulationZero.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-22289\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/PopulationZero.jpg\" alt=\"populationzero\" width=\"325\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/PopulationZero.jpg 325w, https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/PopulationZero-202x300.jpg 202w, https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/PopulationZero-1x1.jpg 1w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 325px) 100vw, 325px\" \/><\/a>Shot documentary-style, Population Zero follows director Julian T. Pinder as he investigates a triple murder in a national park, a place without population, hence the title, and where some laws apply differently or not at all. Director Julian T. Pinder and co-director Adam Levins build a film about an interesting case as these three murders were never fully investigated or prosecuted.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>They dig into the subject and reach out to quite a few people, uncovering evidence fairly easily which puts further doubt on the judicial system and also on the loophole that allowed the case to be dropped.\u00a0 Throughout the film, evidence of who killed the three victims accumulates as well as doubt as to whether or not this is a real documentary or another mockumentary like La Rage du D\u00e9mon which comes off more believable than Population Zero.<\/p>\n<p>The interviewed people here (not credited on IMDB) feel more like rehearsed parts than actual people.\u00a0 The way they speak is too perfect with very little hesitation.\u00a0 As they are everyday people who do not do films or television appearances regularly, their countenance being so professional, it creates a disconnect in how real it all feels.\u00a0 It\u2019s a nitpicky issue but it makes the whole thing feel like a set-up along with how easily they obtained the evidence that authorities could not.<\/p>\n<p>These issues notwithstanding, the film looks very good with cinematography by co-director Adam Levins.\u00a0 The film shows the interviews and locations very clearly, his cinematography takes advantage of the locations and the natural or ambient lighting making the film feel more intimate in some scenes than most straight forward interviews do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Now for a big somewhat spoiler:<\/strong> There is one scene in the film that makes it either entirely exploitative or entirely fake or both.\u00a0 The scene comes near the end and just turns the style of the film around.\u00a0 Yes, the film needed more of a bang after droning on and on for a while following its interesting start but this scene just kind of messes the whole thing up.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, \u201cPopulation Zero\u201d is a film with an interesting subject but an execution that loses steam until that one scene near the end.\u00a0 It\u2019s an okay watch but feels longer than it actually is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shot documentary-style, Population Zero follows director Julian T. Pinder as he investigates a triple murder in a national park, a place without population, hence the title, and where some laws apply differently or not at all. Director Julian T. Pinder and co-director Adam Levins build a film about an interesting case as these three murders [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[477,501,672,703,752,1087],"class_list":["post-22288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-horror","tag-indie-film","tag-mock-documentary","tag-mystery","tag-p","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22290,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288\/revisions\/22290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}