tina_ayoub Nathaniel was very convincing with his story and his evidence to support the story.While watching the movie i thought the only way 4 Nathaniel to b wrong was that Night is in on this documentary.even if night was in on this it still makes a good story,plus i didn't believe that night was an isolated guy.i've seen him in interviews,on the red carpet,he's full of energy and very friendly.so before making any conclusions i surfed the net and found out that it was a hoax. actually i'm surprised that night didn't do the story as a movie where at the end people will think it's a hoax when it's actually true.good job 4 Nathaniel and night this so far is the weirdest idea.

anismuse I actually quite enjoyed this "mockumentary." I had heard about it vaguely, but only got to see on TV a few hours ago. I think it was actually more interesting than say "unbreakable." :).That aside, I thought it started becoming quite obvious this could be hoax (in case you didn't know already), when they started interviewing Night's high school friend, who he "confided" in about his "secret." She was way too poised and articulate to not be an actress. One of the main reasons documentaries are so interesting is the spontaneity of the subjects; their every-day kind of reactions; not composed, emotive, acted out sequences. I don't think you have to be completely gullible to believe it was real, especially if you didn't already know it was a hoax. One could actually believe it, if seeing it as a piece completely disjointed from the marketing hype of that last Night disaster, the village. It was well-crafted, but I have seen a lot of documentaries that are even better crafted and have extremely high production values. Yes, the sea-sickening hand-held camera jiggling got a little too over-the-top sometimes. It did start to especially unravel around the end, where it got needlessly melodramatic.The reasons this failed so miserably has a lot to do with the way it was handled by the Hollywood spinmeisters, rather than its content. I don't think there is anything wrong with mockumentaries, especially if they are well crafted and entertaining. But the Hollywood spin-machine seems to have lost touch with the real world, and are increasingly underestimating the intuition and intelligence of the audience. The marketeers seem to now be living in their own little fantasy world. They actually seem to believe that by creating such obviously over-hyped sensationalist marketing ploy would actually impart any kind of believability to a project like this. They just don't seem to know how to use the media anymore. There are just too many overpaid and way under-qualified marketing (moron) executives working as publicists and marketeers in Hollywood today. I just hope M. Night doesn't eventually fall prey to this vicious vortex of doom. He is a frightfully intelligent person, and a director with great style and potential. He needs to shed that twist ending thing to sell his films though. He will then do a lot better, with or without the help of spirits :)

bob the moo Due to the production of The Village, a documentary film crew get a high level of access to the reclusive director M. Night Syamalan. Thanks to their producer and Night's publicist, they have a collection of authorised interviews to do and find that they are all fairly uninteresting. When they do some talking head stuff with fans, they come across a kid who claims that Night is 'connected'. Following this thread they begin to uncover some strange items in Night's past and, as they wander off the 'authorised' path, they are met with resistance from Night's people. The end result is a speculative documentary that has been disowned by the producers and has been the subject of a legal challenge by Night himself.Despite my plot summary, I sat down to this 'documentary' knowing full well that it was just a piece of fiction as opposed to a genuine documentary. Apparently in the US, some viewers bought it and bought the whole idea – even though that many of the 'real' people do come across as actors and some of the shots are too deliberately staged. If it were a documentary it would be made as one – this is more like the Blair Witch Project as it tries to record things happening. Anyway, even with the knowledge that this was a rather cynical marketing ploy I must say that it was better than a load of talking head interviews with gushing actors, which is usually what we get in the way of promotional material.Even if the 'plot' goes a little far, it is still quite well written and the connections to Night's films makes you think 'well, I suppose' and it helps engage. However this is not to suggest it is a perfect film because it isn't – it is not as well structured as it needed to be and the producers could have done a lot better with it. In some moments it is well done but generally the stuff with the film crew is rather heavily staged and obvious – to the detriment of the film. Also the actual plot is a problem – with its overuse of a pizza delivery boy and some teenagers making it feel like a film as opposed to a factual piece. Depp and Brody come off a bit wooden, while Night himself is too obviously creepy and the performances from the documentary crew themselves are pretty weak and unconvincing.However this was still interesting enough to watch once even if you know it is a fake. The plot is quite clever even if the structure is not as good as it needed to be and it shouldn't have wandered so heavily into Blair Witch territory as it did. Although I can't understand why so many people fell for it, I do think that, as a promo, that this is at least an interesting try and is certainly more enjoyable that the usual actors answering the usual questions and saying how wonderful everything was. Imperfect and will annoy those who see it as a cruel marketing gimmick but it is interesting enough to be worth seeing if you get the chance.

bob_found Definitely one of the most entertaining TV movies I've seen for a long time.I was shocked to see in a CNN report that some gutless fool had decided to demystify the film, stating that "this marketing strategy is not consistent with our policy at NBC." The reference to fans being upset to discover that they had watched a mockumentary was also surprising to me. Would it help them if they had an announcement before any film they watched stating that they were about to see a work of fiction? No doubt this would please Heresy who makes the ridiculous statement in his review on this site that the film should not have been passed off as a documentary at all. Well that's just brainless. Some things are best kept secret. Life would be boring without secrets, don't you think?