Welcome to Clophill, Population: Regret
There’s a special place in cinematic purgatory reserved for found-footage horror films that confuse “slow burn” with “please make it stop.” The Paranormal Diaries: Clophill doesn’t just flirt with that line—it marries it, moves into a haunted cottage with it, and then spends 98 minutes filming absolutely nothing happening in real time.
The film, helmed by Kevin Gates and Michael Bartlett, was meant to be a spooky semi-documentary about a real English church with a history of occult activity. Instead, it feels like a low-budget tourism video for rural Bedfordshire, except the attractions are fog, boredom, and people whispering about how something might happen someday.
A Ghost Story That Forgot the Ghosts
The premise sounds promising on paper: a small film crew investigates rumors of black magic and paranormal goings-on at St. Mary’s Church in Clophill. But instead of horror, we get a 90-minute endurance test in which people talk about the possibility of ghosts with the same energy one brings to discussing tax reform.
Imagine The Blair Witch Project if the filmmakers replaced the screaming and crying with PowerPoint slides and local gossip. The “interviews” with townsfolk feel like deleted scenes from a regional cable documentary, and the “scary” parts—if you can call them that—play out like a home security video of people forgetting where they left the night-vision camera.
The Cast of Nobody
Everyone in the film plays themselves, which is fitting, since there’s no acting, plot, or direction to ruin. Craig Stovin, Criselda Cabitac, and the directors themselves appear on camera as “themselves,” presumably because pretending to be someone else would require a performance.
The “characters” spend most of their time mumbling about energy fields, checking EMF meters, and staring into the woods like they’re waiting for a pizza delivery. You could replace every line of dialogue with “Did you hear that?” and “Wait, what was that noise?” and not lose an ounce of substance.
It’s like watching a group of mildly anxious people film a ghost-hunting YouTube video in one take. If The X-Files had been written by your uncle who once thought his attic was haunted, it might look like this—minus the excitement, production value, and sense of purpose.
Paranormal Activity? More Like Paranormal Apathy
The marketing promised a chilling blend of fact and fiction. What it delivers is an extended camping trip where nothing happens, occasionally interrupted by blurry night vision shots and someone claiming to feel “a presence.”
There’s a moment where the crew sees a “sinister face” watching them from the darkness. Unfortunately, the camera doesn’t, so we’re left squinting into black pixels, wondering if we’re supposed to be scared or just clean our TV screen. Later, two crew members stumble upon a “black magic ritual,” which, like most of the movie, is mostly implied through off-screen panic and bad lighting.
Even the ghosts seem to lose interest. You can almost hear them sighing, “Oh, it’s these people again,” before returning to the afterlife.
Found Footage, Lost Cause
Technically, the film achieves what it sets out to do—it looks found. Very found. As in, someone literally found the footage and decided to release it without editing. The handheld camerawork is so shaky that by the 30-minute mark, you might suspect the true horror lies in your motion sickness.
The editing is glacial, padding out scenes of people setting up tripods or walking silently through the dark for what feels like hours. If there’s one paranormal element that is believable, it’s time distortion. Watching this film makes ninety minutes feel like eternity.
The “Realism” Defense
Supporters might argue that the film’s dullness is “realistic.” After all, real paranormal investigations are mostly waiting around in the dark. True—but realism only works when it serves a narrative. Watching someone wait for a ghost is about as entertaining as watching someone wait for a bus.
What Clophill mistakes for authenticity is really just inertia. The movie’s realism is like a magician showing you the trick, then refusing to perform it because “that’s how it really works.”
The Book Nobody Asked For
In an act of creative optimism (or perhaps penance), Kevin Gates later released a book compiling his “research” for the film. This is the cinematic equivalent of a chef serving a burnt meal and then publishing a cookbook titled How I Burned It.
If the movie didn’t convince you that the church might be haunted, the existence of the tie-in book surely will—it suggests at least one tortured soul still lingers, endlessly rehashing the same unscary legends.
The True Horror: Unfulfilled Potential
Here’s the tragedy: Clophill’s real-life history is fascinating. The desecration of graves, rumors of satanic rites, and eerie rural atmosphere are ripe for a terrifying documentary or a clever found-footage hybrid. But this film treats all that raw material with the enthusiasm of a ghost tour guide on his lunch break.
The blend of “factual interviews” and scripted moments could have worked—think Lake Mungo or Noroi: The Curse, which used similar setups to devastating effect. But Clophill never finds a tone or pace, leaving it trapped between mockumentary and insomnia aid.
Horror Without Teeth
At no point does Clophill deliver a real scare, unless you count the moment you realize there are still thirty minutes left. There’s no tension, no escalation, no payoff. It’s like watching a Ouija board session run by people who forgot the alphabet.
Even the ending, involving a supposedly possessed child, feels like an afterthought—an attempt to staple a climax onto a story that had long since flatlined. It’s the cinematic equivalent of someone shouting “Boo!” after a two-hour PowerPoint.
Verdict: Less FrightFest, More NapFest
By the time the credits roll, you’ll wish the ghosts had taken the camera crew instead of their time. The Paranormal Diaries: Clophill isn’t so much a horror film as it is a slow-motion séance where the only spirit summoned is tedium.
If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to be haunted by boredom itself, this is your chance. Otherwise, skip Clophill entirely and just stare at a blank wall in a dark room—it’s scarier, shorter, and the cinematography’s better.
★☆☆☆☆ (1 out of 5)
For dedicated fans of British ruins, documentary pacing, and existential despair. Everyone else should bring holy water, garlic, and a different movie.
