Filming a documentary with no real theme except the natural habitat, Scott (Jon Foster) and Penny (Sarah Jones) isolate themselves in a desolate cabin. All is well as they spend their first few months living peacefully amongst the surrounding nothingness until they soon discover that they have a mysterious neighbour.

 

Learning that he is a sculptures answer to Banksy sending mysterious scarecrows across the globe to unsuspecting recipients, Scott and Penny think they have stepped onto a gold mine and set to learn more about the urban myth that is Mr Jones. It doesn’t take much investigation to see that there is more than art in Mr Jones intentions and they soon come to realise that the meaning for these creepy scarecrow like structures is the balance of worlds between reality and dreams.

 

‘Mr Jones’ is a slow burning nightmare that gets deep in your head and takes you on a confusing journey along with its lead. The closing 30 minutes are just mind blowingly mixed and the lines between dreams and reality blur further than any film before it.

 

As the events unfold the interesting perspective of ‘Mr Jones’ is that the gatekeeper balances the worlds and that what is happening on screen is in fact happening, this could have easily been a series of conjoining scenes with Scott awaking to a nightmare but both director and writer Mark Mueller has drafted something much cleverer and a concept that has time to execute itself in a much better fashion.

 

Using the found footage format is never our favourite selling point and when that tool doesn’t add the scares and rather the chuckles of shadows stealing bags and the mundane events of storytelling (showcasing a loving couple and that relationship break down in a videolog) doesn’t do any further justice to the sub genre. For when you go beyond the standard format and lose the found footage the action, and scares, become a lot more gripping, unfortunately that means the first half of the film is wasted to Mueller’s superb concept of guarding the realms between dreams and real life. Add into this the level of ambiguity that will leave many dumbfounded along with underused side plots (let's see more of the creepy scarecrows) and it feels like a wasted opportunity that surely deserves a second chance and a revelation.

 

Skip past the seen-it-all-before opening half and finally you will reach the heart of ‘Mr Jones’ where the supernatural takes centre stage in a creepy breakdown of what is going on and when you learn the truth of ‘Mr Jones’, the dreams of having another nightmare have only just begun.