United States of America | 2024 | 83m | English

It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This is an intriguing movie if for no other reason that the filmmakers claim that it will “never be online,” meaning that the only way to watch this movie is to catch one of the rare theatrical screenings, most of which happen at indie horror festivals.

I, however, caught it during “Midnight Madness” at the Toronto International Film Festival. On stage, co-director Nick Toti remarked that he never expected an audience of our size watching his movie, before leading the audience in a lengthy meditation session. It felt out of place for what is pitched as a found-footage horror movie featuring creepy neighbors and a spooky mural, but once the movie reached what is sure to be remembered as its most iconic scene, the director’s invitation to the audience to acclimatize ourselves to lengthy silent introspection made a lot more sense.

Part of the reason the movie is theater-only, I imagine, is so that the filmmakers can come on stage afterwards and explain the project in a way that the movie itself cannot. It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This is mostly made up of home video footage of Nick Toti, Rachel Kempf, and a third person referred to as “Christian.” Nick and Rachel appear to be in some kind of relationship – I couldn’t tell if they were married – but Christian is introduced as a close friend of Rachel’s. Nick appears to take great pleasure in filming Christian “conducting séances” or otherwise spending long periods of time together with Rachel. (“I have hours and hours of that stuff,” Nick told us from the stage.)

Right. So anyway, this footage of goofing around between a group of real-life bohemian creatives (maybe “Hot Topic millennials” is a better descriptor) is mixed with acted, scripted footage featuring the same people in the same locations. Basically, in real life they bought an abandoned duplex in Ohio with the intention of filming a horror movie there, and this movie consists of footage of both the real-life Nick, Rachel, and Christian exploring their new duplex alongside the actual “movie” footage with the same people in-character. The movie banks on this blurring of the lines between reality and fantasy as one of its selling points, but to me it was always obvious when the characters were being sincere and when they were putting on their best Blair Witch impressions.

The “road show” distribution strategy is intriguing, and I appreciated that the filmmakers were present to make the audience feel like we were now part of a small, exclusive club of people who played some role in the story of this deliberately obscure film. Despite being named It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This, I can think of several movies that do the “found footage” thing more effectively than this. Most of the movie is admittedly unremarkable footage of friendly interactions between the main characters shot on a smartphone. But then comes one scene in particular that hits you like a freight train and redeems the whole movie. That one, absolute knockout scene remains in my mind like the creepy, unmoving neighbors loitering outside the duplex. It’s a scene that could only be as effective as it is in a packed theater, with the audience completely silent and held in suspense (not to mention left with no means of fast-forwarding). For that part of the movie at least… sure, it doesn’t get any better than that.

2.5/5

Viewed on September 13, 2024 at the Royal Alexandra Theatre as part of the Toronto International Film Festival 2024.