The next 'Blair Witch Project'? NJ filmmaker shocks horror world with 'The Outwaters'

From the perspective of someone raised in a state as thoroughly developed and densely-populated as New Jersey, wide-open expanses of a desert landscape can be pretty scary.

That’s plainly evident in “The Outwaters,” the chilling and challenging new horror film from New Brunswick native director and star Robbie Banfitch, opening in select cinemas this week.

“The Outwaters” is the story of four young adults who trek into California’s Mojave Desert with the intention of shooting a music video. Things go catastrophically, cosmically wrong.

“My initial idea for what I wanted the movie to feel like would be like swimming in ... the ocean in the dark, which is frightening, not knowing where you are,” said Banfitch. “And the desert can be like that in some ways, (with) vast expanses. And even though it’s not always dark, it can feel like you’re in an ocean.”

Banfitch, a graduate of the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, is also the film’s star and screenwriter, and was responsible for its cinematography, editing, special effects and sound design.

“The Outwaters” is a boldly confident work of found footage filmmaking, with Banfitch’s aspiring music video director character documenting all of the movie’s horrific happenings.

Banfitch, now based in Los Angeles, returns home to New Jersey this week to screen “The Outwaters” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 7, at Reading Cinemas Manville — the same theater where he first saw “The Blair Witch Project” in 1999.

With “The Outwaters,” Banfitch explained, “I actually just tried to follow the rules to found footage movies that I really love, which were the original ‘Blair Witch Project’ and ‘Willow Creek’ (2013). The rules that I tried to follow were feeling authentically found — so feeling actually raw and not edited — (and to) have a logical start and stop point for when I would press ‘record.’ ”

The events of “The Outwaters” are presented as the data found on a trio of memory cards — and by the time viewers arrive at the third memory card, the movie is unflinchingly challenging viewers’ expectations of how the found footage subgenre is supposed to work.

“I was just following the logic of the story,” said Banfitch. “So the logic of the story challenged the conventions, I guess. Or it’s maybe something a little bit new, and I found that just trying to connect the dots in terms of what was happening.”

'Kind of a craft beer of movies'

“The Outwaters” is scheduled to open in select cinemas nationwide starting Thursday, Feb. 9, via Cinedigm and Bloody Disgusting, followed by a streaming bow on Screambox.

The film was shot over approximately 25 days in 2019 and 2020, while Banfitch was managing the Los Angeles office of Greenpeace, the environmental organization and global campaigning network. "Outwaters" is the latest success story for the New Jersey Film Festival, as the movie had its world premiere there in February 2022.

Presented by the Rutgers Film Co-op/New Jersey Media Arts Center on the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers University and streaming through Eventive, the festival has been a Central Jersey institution for decades.

“I’m so happy for (Banfitch),” said festival executive director and curator Albert Nigrin. “His film deserves the attention because it was made with a lot of love. It’s really a homebrew. It’s kind of a craft beer of movies and I think it came out great, it tastes great. I think it does what it’s supposed to do.”

Now in its 42nd year, the New Jersey Film Festival gives a credibility boost to films that hit its screen. Previous featured filmmakers include Luke Matheny, whose 2007 short “Earano” played the festival before he went on to win a Best Short Film, Live Action Academy Award in 2011 for “God of Love.”

“It’s wonderful to see somebody who’s come back home with a success,” said Nigrin. “That’s what we’re all about. We’re here to try (to) launch careers and help filmmakers get attention.”

“The Outwaters” is part of a movement of DIY horror cinema that’s got film-watchers talking, thanks to Banfitch and his peers — including “Skinamarink” director Kyle Edward Ball and Damien Leone's New Jersey-shot “Terrifier” films.

It’s the latest phase in a cyclical cinematic pattern, Nigrin explained.

“It starts with ‘Eraserhead’ in ’77,” Nigrin said, “and then you make your way to ‘Blair Witch Project’ at the end of the millennium. It’s almost a generational thing. You can go even further back and say ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’ (in 1959). It has this evolution. It’s changed, of course. It’s much different.”

With its great wide open scares, “The Outwaters” can been seen as a work of post-COVID terror.

“I just think it’s probably (a) post-pandemic, pandemic type of film,” Nigrin said, “since it’s kind of small, intimate, and we were all closed in.”

For more information on “The Outwaters,” a full list of theaters and tickets, visit theoutwatersmovie.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: The Outwaters: NJ director Robbie Banfitch shocks horror world