“Invoking Yell” (2023) [Portland Horror Film Festival]

by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden

In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s Invoking Yell, a found footage flick by Patricio Valladares that is a part of this year’s Portland Horror Film Festival.

Synopsis

Set in 1997 in southern Chile, Invoking Yell finds a trio of metalhead twenty-something girls — Andrea (María Jesús Marcone) and Tania (Macarena Carrere), founding members of the titular black metal band, and video photographer Ruth (Andrea Ozuljevich), who also hopes to join the band — venturing into the woods to shoot their demo tape while also documenting the eerie and unsettling process of recording psychophony (when a spirit talks using the voice of a medium) for the final track.

The Good

Joseph: Although it might not be what many viewers expect when considering a found footage feature combining horror and black metal, Invoking Yell serves up some interesting points about the black metal music movement of the 1990s, including Chile-specific commentary and more general thoughts such as the subgenre’s male dominance. The main characters are an interesting enough bunch, calling out other bands as posers while doing quite a bit of posturing themselves, including plenty of tongues-out mugging for the camera. Andrea is the most intense and blunt of the trio, and Marcone nails her performance of a young woman intent on making the black metal scene. Carrere also turns in solid work as the more outgoing band member while Ozuljevich provides fine support as the outsider hoping to get in with the founding pair. Once the horror elements kick in — and they do so quite quickly once the film heads in that direction — Invoking Yell offers a suspenseful third act.

Mike: Fans of found-footage films will be satisfied knowing that all the hallmarks of the style are found within Invoking Yell’s <90m runtime. The subject matter (death/black/hard metal “music”) may not appeal to everyone, but it provides an interesting reason for the three young women to be out in the middle of nowhere as well as drive the story (to the degree that it does). Speaking of the characters, all three actresses do a fine job in their portrayals of the band members and videographer with each having a very distinct personality. Andrea Ozuljevich, who plays Ruth - the character behind the camera for 95% of the film - does a good job bringing her character to life through just her voice and inflections in addition to the brief screen time she gets visually.

The Bad

Joseph: My thoughts in this department line up with the issues that most found-footage horror films have. Usually in this genre, not a lot goes on for the first two acts other than a basic set-up, some character backstory, and a lot of wandering around the main setting. That certainly applies here. I’m also not a fan of shaky camera work as I get motion sickness easily from it, and that’s another mainstay of found footage that we find in Invoking Yell.

Mike: Invoking Yell adheres to the found footage style of a long first act followed by a quick turn of events and a finale that is usually never conclusive insofar as to what has played out. As someone who enjoys the style this would seem to be a ‘Good’ aspect, but the problem is that too much attention is placed on the immediate events while the (sometimes) little and subtle clues that something isn’t quite right are omitted. It isn’t until things go from okay to bad before anything remotely wrong seems to be going on, and at that point everything just sort of falls off the rails with things just happening. With no foreshadowing it all plays out rather disjointed and some confusing edits make things even harder for the viewer to come to their own conclusions as to what happened.

The Verdict

Joseph: Director Patricio Valladares invests Invoking Yell with some intriguing fear-fare elements, including hunting for electronic voice phenomenon in an area where several children died in a bus accident and a diabolical ritual, the latter of which is to be expected in a horror film about a black metal band. Although the first two acts might have been better served having some more suspense or chills, overall, Invoking Yell is an entertaining feature that should appeal strongly to aficionados of found-footage horror along with black-metal fans.

Mike: Invoking Yell has a pretty original foundation upon which the usual and expected devices that drive found footage films are built. Despite this, some interesting locales, and good turns by all three of the actresses, the film fails to deliver a “coherent uncertainty” that will most likely frustrate even the most ardent fan of the film style.

Invoking Yell, from Patricio Valladares, is screening at this year’s Portland Horror Film Festival, which runs June 7–11, 2023 in Portland, Oregon, with a streaming version also available to viewers in the United States. For more information, visit https://portlandhorrorfilmfestival.com/.

Invoking Yell