The Death of April starts out really frighteningly. And not in an "oh my, this is scary" way - more like an "oh no, is this whole damn thing shot on a laptop?" kind of way. Turns out, it's about a young woman (confusingly not April) who kept a regularly updated video diary when she moved from California to the East Coast. But strange things are afoot in her new apartment, and luckily her video diary was there to document them.
And luckily for us, the video diary isn't the sole means of telling her story. The Death of April is set up as a documentary - so while the diary plays a big part, you also get interviews with friends, family, paranormal researchers, etc.
My Synopsis: Megan has just moved the "The East Coast." The film is very vague about exactly where and just refers to it again and again as the "east coast" - probably to trick you into thinking it could be real (or harder to research)? Although one character slips up and says Jersey. Megan seemed to have a good thing back in California - she came from a wealthy family, and had good relationships with her parents and friends. But she just wanted to strike out on her own, I guess. Megan is nervous about living alone though, and those fears are justified when some supernatural shenanigans start happening at her new house. But her family isn't sold on it. Is Megan just staging it for attention? What gives? The fact that she's not interviewed for the documentary, and the fact that she's often referred to in the past tense should give you the hint that things don't work so well for her.
Elaborate Genre: Found Footage Mockumentary Paranormal Mystery
Overall: Slow, with some big ol' swaths of nothing. But generally pretty well done.
One thing that I kind of liked about the film is that it doesn't really provide any clear answers as to what is going on. Not to get too spoilery, but it's kind of up to interpretation as to whether Megan is a victim of a haunting or just mentally ill. (Why not both?) Since you really only get to know Megan on these video diaries, there's a sort of "unreliable narrator" feel to her side of the story.
And as a faux documentary, The Death of April is realistically done. There's a good mix of the diary stuff, interviews with family and professionals (cops, therapists, paranormal investigators), and even some old home video (presumably culled from lead actress Katrarina Hughes' personal collection). It's all presented very matter-of-factly. There's not a lot of music or anything that sways the mood one way or the other, and it's edited much like your standard documentary. Even though we know it's all hokum, writer-director Ruben Rodriguez keeps the illusion going well.
The biggest issue with the film is that it's just kind of slow. I think there was a clear end point that Rodriguez wanted to get to, and you get the feeling that he just sort of worked backward from there. There are big chunks of the film that feel like treading water. (And when Megan's brother comes to visit, it's obnoxiously treading water.) When it's all said and done, it doesn't feel like an awful lot has actually *happened* in the film. But Hughes is an engaging and likable enough presence, so it never really feels Super Boring. But The Death of April is clearly comfortable moving at a very low key pace.
After looking around on the ol' internet a bit, it looks like the faux documentary is really a hated "genre." And I doubt the The Death of April is going to change your mind, if you aren't inclined to like this style of film in the first place. But whatever, I had a good enough time with it.
I would more or less recommend this film.
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