Hipster Doofus videographer Aaron is heading for the mountains.  He answered an ad for $1,000 per day “filming services, discretion is appreciated.”

Aaron walks up a virtiginous set of steps and knocks; and rings; and calls.  No answer to any of them.  Not even a ruffled curtain.  Whoa — prom night flashback.  He ponders his next move as he looks down these amazing stairs, and the nice new axe buried in a tree stump right beside them.  He decides to wait in the car.

Luckily it is a short wait as Joseph shows up and and tells him he likes his face and gives him a big hug.  They go inside and Joseph describes his health, how he had cancer of the liver which spread to the lungs, how he took chemo, and beat his cancer into remission immediately.  Is this the project?  Not exactly Shoah.

And now he has an inoperable brain tumor the size of a baseball.  Oh . . . sorry about the Shoah crack.

He says he experiences dizziness and cognitive misfirings which I’m thinking is going to come into play anytime now.  Joseph has a wife name Angela and has a child on the way.  He wants to make a video diary for his unborn son just as he saw one time in a movie.

The job is to keep the camera rolling and Joseph says to just following him around, a normal day in the life of his dead dad.  Oddly, he wants the first scene to be in the tub.  If he was that intent on a full day, why not start with taking his morning dump on camera?  He indeed gets naked and in the tub, pantomimes playing with his baby boy (not a euphemism).

Then he dances around for his unborn son in a wolf mask named Peach-Fuzz.  They put on some wacky hats go on the road.  They are heading for a lake that supposedly has healing powers.  And maybe more opportunity for nakedness.  They park the car and head into the woods.  Not being loaded up with camera equipment, Joseph is able to dart into the woods.  Aaron goes looking for him, and Joseph pops out from behind a rock, throwing a scare into him.  Joseph says after the shock faded, there was a couple of seconds where Aaron looked like he wanted to kill him.

Aaron is a little worried that they won’t be able to find their way home. Then Joseph spots the healing waters — a small rapid / waterfall and a pit of water shaped like a heart. Absolutely nothing comes of this or the idea of being lost as they are wolfing down pancakes in a diner seconds later.

At nightfall, Aaron feels he’s earned his $1,000 but Joseph insists they have a whiskey to celebrate their “merry day.”  Joseph also wants to relate a story, off-camera, of bestiality and the wacky time he broke into his own house and raped his wife disguised in the Peach-Fuzz mask.  Aaron’s key’s go missing and he tries to search Joseph while he is sleeping.  Unfortunately, Joseph’s phone rings and Aaron answers it.  Angela — who says she is really his sister — advises him to leave the house immediately.  OK, so now that raping-his-wife story is creepy.

The film takes an unexpected turn structurally.  Up to this point, the scares were jump scares — literally — Josef jumping into view and scaring Aaron.  But there was more curiosity than suspense in trying to figure out just what was happening.  But Aaron makes it home and receives several strange objects, in the mail, on his doorstep, on his windowsill.

Now, what could happen on a beautiful day like this?

There are a few minutes of genuine creepiness and suspense, then it goes back to more of a curiosity.  In the end, though — especially at the end — it came together for me, but can see how others would hate it.

Post-Post:

• The movie refered to is My Life with Michael Keaton and Nicole Kidman.
• So Joseph’s Internet was slow because the “History was full”?
• Aaron calls the police but has no evidence he can offer — no last name, no address, guess he ditched the phone.  Too bad he didn’t have anything.  Except the picture Josef sent him, and hours of video, which he didn’t think to mention to the police.