Panic Fest 2024 Jeffrey’s Hell Review- Clautrophobic Weirdness With A Powerful Punch

The found footage subgenre has become almost a joke. The fake recordings often seem overly cheesy and can be played out. Just a whiff of the concept can make some audiences run for the hills. For those of us long-time fans who remember seeing The Blair Witch Project in theaters, we can’t help but be excited every time a new movie like this comes out because we genuinely think a filmmaker might catch lightning in a bottle. It worked for Oren Peli and his Paranormal Activity franchise. We always hope someone may find that magic again. Sometimes it happens. We’re All Going To The World’s Fair from Jane Schoenbrun comes to mind. It isn’t supernaturally scary in the same way as the previous two movies mentioned, but there is an undeniable glow-in-the-dark dream world that she presents that is low-key terrifying. Jeffrey’s Hell, by writer and director Aaron Irons, is similar.

Jeffrey’s Hell acts as almost a sequel to Irons’ first film, Chest, which was a folk horror-inspired found footage film in the same ilk as Blair Witch. Chest wasn’t just a rip-off, though. It excelled because it uses the history of the area to inform rather than jump scares and overwrought soundtracks. His newest movie, premiering at Panic Fest 2024, uses a mesmerizing interview with Irons where he admits to being interested in a potential suicide mission to Mars. It’s honest and heartbreaking, and his words command attention. A quick cut upends the viewer’s revelry and delivers us unceremoniously into a mysterious Hell. Irons went missing while exploring Jeffrey’s Hell in 2023. A new filmmaking crew found the story and decided to investigate.

Irons went missing a year earlier in Jeffrey’s Hell, a real place in Eastern Tennessee. The location’s name alone demands a story, and there is no shortage of urban legends and takes on aliens, monsters, ghosts, and cryptids. In Chest, the film crew was looking for a chest hidden in a cave that may or may not exist. In Jeffrey’s Hell, a new film crew is looking for Irons. He went missing looking for information on Ebeneezer Jeffrey, for whom the area was named. A random post on social media for information sent him into the woods, where he was never seen again. It was only later that footage emerged from the dark web.

A series of bizarre interviews between the new documentary team and the cast and crew of Chest stretch the credibility of Jeffrey’s Hell. A sense of absurdity threatens to derail everything but is never allowed to fully teeter into hilarity. Something terrible happened, and no one can quite wrap their brains around it, so they use humor just as many would in similar circumstances.

Irons left a small stash of items, including his camera, outside the cave where his last known whereabouts. That’s a touch convenient, and one of the interviewees sagely makes that connection, but as with most films like this, you have to actually find the footage to have a story so that plot device can be forgiven. The movie starts to feel the strain when those boundaries are pushed further. Fool us once, and we will ignore it. Fool us a second time, and we begin to cry foul.

All of Irons’ comments sprinkled in throughout meant to allow his stupidest decisions to go unquestioned have the opposite effect. Maybe he just said all of his bonehead decisions were dumb because he needed to convince himself not to do it but failed. Especially considering his depressive admission earlier, it’s plausible these portions were instead indicative of a mental illness, which makes the story much more believable and what happens later so much more compelling.

The first half of the film is weakest, and your tolerance for ridiculousness will be tested. If you view the film’s first half as a work product from the new crew and Irons’ talking head commentary as tragic self-reflection, then the back half of Jeffrey’s Hell has real power. It is here that Irons shines both as an actor, director, writer, cinematographer, and editor. Once he descends into the darkness, a myriad of demons, mostly of the internal variety, are unleashed.

Most of the time, there is nothing scarier than our minds. Jeffrey’s Hell brilliantly shows that. What comes out of the darkness and the darkest parts of Irons’ mind is harrowing. The camera work puts you in that cold, dark, lonely cave with Irons and is impactful. It is visually disturbing without tricks, and the simplicity of the shots allows you to feel Irons escalating horror. Reminiscent of Hellier, The Descent, and breakout freakfest The Outwaters, Jeffrey’s Hell is weird and creepy and packs a lasting punch. Does this cave really exist? What happened to Irons? Some things are better left alone.