Tinsman Road is a grueling emotional gut punch that explores grief, guilt, and the great unknown, but poor pacing and a lack of conflict leave it lost without a compass
“You wanted to do this.”
“Yeah, because I believe.”
The found footage genre, when properly embraced, can truly be magical. It has the ability to pull the audience in and remove typical cinematic barriers in order to blur the lines between fantasy and reality. This fringe form of filmmaking has become increasingly popular due to it being a format that justifies a low budget and a greater opportunity to drum up a sizable return on investment. This leads to a number of found footage horror films that don’t necessarily need to be told in this manner. One of the biggest reasons that found footage horror falls apart is because it abuses the format and uses it as an excuse for minimalist filmmaking that just wouldn’t cut it in any other form of movie. These should be stories that necessitate the found footage angle, rather than forcing these limitations on a story that doesn’t warrant it.
Found footage is frequently turned to as a way to better understand and make sense of something, which is usually some supernatural event, urban legend, or unexplainable mystery. Found footage is also an opportunity to look inward and try to make sense of the protagonist and why they’re wielding the camera and looking for answers. This becomes an even more powerful journey when the found footage at hand is heavily composed of home videos and it attempts to unpack one’s own family, which is the case in Tinsman Road.
Home videos are meant to preserve memories and snapshots of the past. They’re an attempt to own something that’s inherently intangible. Found footage horror is built on many of the same principles, which can make it a fascinating tool when an ordinary family is filtered through this macabre lens. Tinsman Road is an intimate, emotional story that seeks answers over a missing family member. It’s a found footage film that cuts to the core of something very raw and real, yet problematic pacing and a lack of scares often make Tinsman Road feel like a dead end.
Robbie Banfitch first made waves in the indie horror scene with 2023’s The Outwaters, a surrealist found footage feature that genuinely disrupted and provoked the experimental genre. Banfitch returns to found footage in Tinsman Road, but it’s very different from its predecessor. Tinsman Road is less interested in subversion and is a more emotionally mature endeavor. It’s not a scarier film, per se, but it’s arguably the better made movie. A stripped down story attempts to get answers on Robbie’s missing sister, Noelle, and how her disappearance has affected his mother, Leslie (played by Banfitch’s real-life mother, Leslie Banfitch). Tinsman Road repeatedly asks what happens after death and manages to answer this question in its own way. It engages in fleeting discussions about angels and spirits, which can be enlightening territory to explore in horror. This meditation on faith and belief becomes the backbone to Tinsman Road.
Robbie’s investigation for answers about his sister turns into a haunting homecoming that taps into the pain and grief of confronting the past. Tinsman Road understands that there’s a necessity for closure and moving on, both for lingering spirits and those that they leave behind. Leslie survives her missing daughter, but in many ways she’s just as much of a ghost who is resigned to haunting her old life. Robbie’s journey is slow and methodical. It reinforces the power of community and how local tragedies can have ripple effects and become urban legends that reflect the collective weight of a singular human life. Staccato edits between these emotional moments mirror the dissonance in Robbie and Leslie’s lives. Much like the editing, their lives have been abrasively interrupted and plagued with gaps.
Tinsman Road is full of raw, real performances, especially from Leslie, which become the film’s secret weapon. It’s paramount that these characters come across as authentic. Tinsman Road strips all the excess away and offers up such a minimalist, barebones production. It’s truly lo-fi and personal to the point that the cast is all made up of Banfitch’s family and friends. It contributes to a natural chemistry that perpetually shines through. Tinsman Road isn’t afraid to let its actors act. There are long, patient shots that linger on characters while they cry, open up, and lose themselves. It’s a remarkably heavy movie that steeps everything in this melancholy fog before anything sinister occurs.
The horrors and tension in Tinsman Road come from the pain of reality and existence. This creates an intense dread that builds over the course of the film as the audience waits for the other shoe to drop. Unfortunately, there are prolonged periods when Tinsman Road bleeds tension rather than amplifies it. There’s a terror that’s cultivated through absence and the unknown, which gives Tinsman Road many opportunities to play with expectations. The film is most comfortable when it keeps the audience in the dark. That being said, there’s a singular set piece that’s genuinely terrifying and the one moment of true horror. Whether it’s enough for the audience and worth this overwrought journey is another story.
Tinsman Road sticks the landing and accomplishes what it seeks out to do. It just might not be enough for the majority of its audience. Robbie Banfitch creates a film that’s considerably more tender and delicate than his past works. Tinsman Road’s emotional throughline is very powerful and likely to resonate with anyone who prematurely lost a family member. These grounded, lived-in performances are easily the film’s greatest asset. The story’s setpieces and development just need the same level of craftsmanship, rather than getting lost in a shaggy edit. Tricks that worked in The Outwaters are less successful here and Banfitch’s shine may be starting to wear off if he doesn’t start to change up his routine. Tinsman Road stays true to itself and ends with a massive bang – literally – but it’s found footage that’s more lost than found.
Tinsman Road screened at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival; release info TBD.
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