A ‘disturbing’ new found footage horror film is leaving moviegoers in tears this Halloween for a surprising reason.
Tinsman Road, which follows a young man’s search for his missing sister in the woods of New Jersey, has already earned comparisons to The Blair Witch Project and Lake Mungo.
Some critics have even called it one of the most believable and realistic found footage movies ever made.
However, it’s not the film’s chilling scenes that have disturbed viewers – it’s the emotion.
Moviegoers have flooded the internet with reviews of Tinsman Road following a slate of festival screenings, with many saying that it reduced them to tears.
A ‘disturbing’ new found footage horror film called Tinsman Road is leaving viewers in tears
‘The last act of this film had me on the edge of my seat only to be the first found footage movie ever to almost make me cry,’ wrote one.
‘I feel like I’ve just experienced a true haunting – scary and upsetting and sad,’ wrote another.
A review from Dread Central called it ‘impressive found footage epic’ with ‘a deeply moving story’.
‘The symmetry here is enough to make you shed a tear, if you haven’t already by the time this powerful film comes to a close,’ they wrote in their four star review.
‘Shot entirely on Mini-DV in a grainy 4:3 aspect ratio – that immediately evokes the handmade aesthetic of early 2000s digital video – Robbie Banfitch’s latest work strips away the artifice that has accumulated around mockumentary horror, returning the form to its raw, unsettling roots,’ wrote critic Alex Modica.
Tinsman Road is currently in limited release and is exclusively playing in LOOK Cinemas from October 31, with screenings set for Los Angeles, Georgia, Dallas, Fort Worth, and more.
This isn’t the first time that director Banfitch has shocked viewers with one of his films.
In 2023, horror fans were left terrified and nauseous by his ‘disturbing’ breakthrough film, The Outwaters.
Tinsman Road follows a young man’s search for his missing sister in the woods of New Jersey
The chilling and emotional film has already been compared to The Blair Witch Project and Lake Mungo
The indie flick was made on a shoestring budget but made a big impact on critics, winning rave reviews.
In The Outwaters, things turn terrifying after a camping trip to the Mojave Desert goes very wrong.
All four of the campers, who are trying to film a music video in the desert, are subject to horrifying happenings including strange animal behaviour and vibrations.
One person wrote: ‘I just watched @TheOutwaters… Holy f*****g s**t. I really don’t have words at the moment for how scared this film made me. I’m so excited to watch it again.’
Another penned: ‘Second viewing because the first time was still haunting me.’
A third person said: ‘Just finished #TheOutwaters and it was very effective. Definitely wish I’d seen it in the theater. It was disorienting, disturbing, extremely anxiety-inducing, and an absolute journey into hell. Two thumbs up!’
Director Robbie Banfitch previously shocked audiences with his 2022 horror hit The Outwaters
Someone else added: ‘The Outwaters is the first film to give me nightmares since childhood.’
Another wrote: ‘Due to this and the Outwaters I will probably never visit the desert again.’
A different person shared: ‘I’m still processing #TheOutwaters. I am not sure if it worked for me. The sounding made me so uncomfortably dizzy that I had to leave the theatre to vomit. This never happened to me before. It’s more disturbing than scary if that makes any sense.’
Reviewers also shared their own views on the film, with Noel Murray from the Los Angeles Times writing: ‘Some may find all this tedious or confusing, but there’s an admirable integrity to Banfitch’s approach.
‘The Outwaters genuinely feels like a first-person perspective on the end of the world.
‘Just don’t forget your anti-nausea tablets if you’re planning on watching the movie.’
