Tags:
Film: Project MKHEXE
Year: 2025
Director: Gerald Robert Waddell
Writer: Gerald Robert Waddell
Starring: Ignacyo Matynia, Jordan Knapp and Will Jandro
Review:
This was a film that I got the chance to check out via screener thanks to Alex from Simply Legendary Publicity. This is a film that is coming to Screambox, which is a streaming service that I subscribe to and periodically use to watch different things they offer. What caught my attention here is that this falls into the found footage filming style. There was limited information available which intrigued me even farther. This being a 2025 horror film was another perk in its favor.
Synopsis: an aspiring filmmaker returns home after his younger brother’s suicide, only to discover his brother’s obsession with a malevolent conspiracy theory that threatens to destroy reality.
This starts off with a home video for a young boy’s birthday party. There is voice-over narration by our lead character, Tim (Ignacyo Matynia), talking about his younger brother, Sean (Will Jandro). He passed away and the reasoning for his death was ruled suicide. Tim goes about making this documentary to explore what drove his brother to do what he did. Sean just completed his freshman year of college. He was always a happy guy. That was until about 100 days before his death.
Sean returned home for the summer to relax and hang out with his friends. He ended up spending more time at home with his parents, played by Jennifer Lynn O’Hara and Dwayne Tarver. Sean believed he stumbled upon proof of a secret government project to do mind control. It is in the vein of Project MKULTRA. This one was Project MKHEXE.
The information out there is limited. It almost to the point where Tim wonders if his brother was connecting things that weren’t related as he descended into madness. Tim seeks out Nicole (Jordan Knapp) who was a friend to his brother. She was also hanging out with him during the dark days leading to his death. She encourages Tim to do the documentary. What they find will test their limits of belief, border into the supernatural and make them wonder if they’re also going crazy. It also strains relationships around them.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I’ll start is by saying that this is a difficult one to write about. At the time of initially writing this review, I had to piece information together. There wasn’t an Internet Movie Database or Letterboxd page during the initial writing of this. I took info from the press release and the Amazon Prime page. This makes it difficult to do what I like to do when writing reviews. I also give it credit though.
Now that I’ve set this up, let me tell you why I like being cryptic like they are. In this day and age, it is difficult to preserve realism for a movie like this. It feels in the vein of The Blair Witch Project where I don’t recall there being an opening credits. There aren't ending credits, but it does provide a QR code which leads to their website that gives more information. If memory serves, I had another screener for a found footage film like this called Murder Death Koreatown. With the internet, social media and a 24 hour news cycle, when you can hide things like they do here, I’m on board for that.
Let’s then dive into what we’re getting here. The title was interesting to me. When Tim gives background information, it makes sense. I also know how to pronounce it. It is playing with the conspiracy theory about secret projects within the government back during the Cold War. This stemmed from Project Paperclip where we brought scientists over after World War II. The Soviet Union did the same thing. MKHEXE almost seems like a sister project to MKULTRA. A brief overview is that this was using subliminal messaging and mind control. They were broadcasting late at night in the Midwest. There could also have been a machine facilitating it. What I love about this is that I remember later in my childhood being up late, watching weird things on television and being so tired the next day that I don’t fully remember what I saw. Other people my age also seem to have similar experiences so being able to connect makes this work better.
The last bit for the story to go into is that this has vibes of cosmic horror. There are these images that Sean received that are from different places but oddly similar. That feels like something from H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu. There is a name of their ‘god’ that is referenced. Sticking in that line, we have characters that are driven mad which is a concept that gets used in dealing with entities like this. What I like though is that there could be a logical or a supernatural angle to explain things. It is left up to the viewer to decide what they think. We are also seeing footage but it could be tampered with or seeing what characters are which adds to the mystique.
Now since this is more about the visuals and what our characters are experiencing, let’s discuss the filmmaking. Since this is found footage, this creates opportunities and issues. There is that age old question, why are they still filming? It works here though as they’re doing a documentary on what happened to Sean. He descended into madness looking into these things so I could see them filming everything they could to document the journey and potentially keep from going mad. Using this also limits staging things or helping to hide effects. We get interesting practical effects. I do know there are computer graphics that don’t hold up as well. What I’ll forgive though is the fact that we have characters going crazy. We’re watching the footage so we could be following the same path. That’s how I justify it. There are interesting things here with the sound design and how certain sounds cause things to happen as well.
All that is left then is the acting performances. I thought that Matynia was good as our lead. What I love is that we see the videos showing Jandro’s character crazy. We then seeing Tim follow a similar path as his brother, which is good. I like that Knapp is someone we can’t fully trust. Part of that though is that it feels like she’s holding information back. We’re also following an unreliable narrator so that’s another. Other than that, I’d say O’Hara, Tarver and the rest of the cast rounded this out for what was needed.
In conclusion, this one is an interesting watch. I highly recommend if you decide to, come into this one as blind as you can. This is more about the visuals though. We have a distraught brother wanting to make sense of what happened to his sibling. The acting here isn’t great, but it feels real. That’s all you need for a movie like this. There are interesting aspects of incorporating cosmic horror in. Also using conspiracy theories. That adds to the distrust. This is made well enough with the cinematography, framing and sound design. There are slight issues with practical effects, but with reasons through the world of movies, I am forgiving. If what I said here is the style and subject matter, then give this one a watch.
My Rating: 7 out of 10