https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLkuOVQMQ7U
A full Free Movie of the Day is posted on the JoBlo Movies YouTube channel every day of the week – but on Fridays things get a little freakier and a little more fun. Get your weekend started the right way by indulging in Friday Fright Nights! Every Friday, we’ll be taking a look at another genre movie you can watch in its entirety, free of charge, either on the YouTube channel linked above or in the video embed here.
Last week’s Friday Fright Nights feature was the slasher Scare Zone, which was set in and around a haunted house attraction. So I suggested that any independent filmmakers out there who have access to haunted house attractions should also base a story around that location. This week’s feature can serve as inspiration for aspiring filmmakers and indie filmmakers as well. It’s a found footage horror film called The Andy Baker Tape, and it shows how much someone can accomplish with a high quality camera and a budget of only $2000. To make the situation even more challenging, this movie was also written, shot, and edited in a six month period during the height of the pandemic, back in 2020.
Director, co-star, and co-writer Bret Lada said in a press release that The Andy Baker Tape was “created by a displaced screen actor, an out-of-work Blue Man, an Australia-based sound engineer, and a first-time female producer. This film is a testament to creation and keeping the artistic spirit alive while the rest of the world was forced into hibernation.” And whether you like the movie or not, it’s definitely inspiring to see how far a movie that was shot guerilla-style on such a low budget has gotten – including landing major distribution!
Scripted by Lada and co-star Dustin Fontaine, The Andy Baker Tape has the following synopsis:
In October of 2020 food blogger Jeff Blake and his half-brother Andy Baker hit the road on a food tour that had the potential to change their lives. They were never seen again. This is their footage…
Lada and Fontaine are the only two on screen actors in the film, but it also features the voices of Bethany Kay, Raymond Lada, and producer Caitlin Borek.
Like many found footage movies, The Andy Baker Tape is a slow burn. Don’t expect much that would slot the movie into the horror genre to happen before the last twenty minutes. But the ride to the horrific moments can be interesting, as Lada and Fontaine crafted intriguing characters for themselves to play and brought these guys to life on the screen with solid performances. It’s kind of nice getting to know Jeff and Andy before everything falls apart.
So check out The Andy Baker Tape – after all, it’s free! And as an added bonus, it’s only 69 minutes long. See what Lada and Fontaine were able to accomplish with such limited means, and start imagining what you might be able to accomplish if you were to follow in their footsteps and, as Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman advises, make your own damn movie.
