Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan ’97 Review (Short Film, 2021)

It should come as no surprise to anyone at this point that I like experimental horror films. I want an experience. I want to see something I haven’t seen before. I want to watch things that linger in the mind and unravel into new interpretations over time.

“Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan ‘97” is the real deal. It is a simple idea executed to perfection. A father is teaching his son, Jake, how to use a camcorder. He’s really proud of him, calling out for his partner to come see how well he’s doing. He offers him some tips along the way. The video ends with the camcorder falling out of Jake’s hands. Then someone rewinds the tape and we watch it again and again.

Brian David Gilbert is the creator of this short horror film. I know of him because of the work he used to do at Polygon, and now he produces video content for his own YouTube channel. He’s best known for comedy videos and music, but he plays around with horror on occasion.

Here’s the big secret to a lot of successful horror: absurdity. We’re dealing with a genre that takes something we’re afraid of and pushes it to unimaginable extremes. Great horror often has moments of levity to break the tension and allow you to recover for a bit before something worse comes along. We have to believe the concept could be real long enough to accept all the bizarre twists and turns that would be completely unrealistic if told on their own. It really shouldn’t be a surprise when a talented comedian makes a great horror film because the structure of a joke and a scare can be broken down in similar ways: context, setup, punchline/scare.

“Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan ‘97” left me with a feeling of dread straight away and I still don’t know why. It’s not just the video in frame. You’re watching the video from the first person perspective of whoever is playing it. The small TV, VHS player, a wall, and a door are always in frame. A hand reaches out to press play or rewind every time the video shifts.

Small things change on each replay. The first thing to change is a moment with the zoom. Jake presses the wrong button, zooming in super close on his father’s chest. The second time we see it, it zooms into his father’s neck. Other small details change each time. We’re being set up to look for changes in what appears on the tape, slowly losing track of what changed from the first viewing. We watch history rewrite itself in real time and can’t stop it.

I don’t want to spoil any of the fun. I’m a big fan of found footage horror and this short has similar vibes to horror games like Duck Hunt and Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. “Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan ‘97” is an unreliable narrator horror film in the first person and you don’t have the luxury of looking away.

“Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan ‘97” is available on Brian David Gilbert’s YouTube Channel.