Milk & Serial

Directed by Curry Barker, Milk & Serial details the escalating exploits of two prank-loving friends (Barker’s Milk and Cooper Tomlinson’s Seven). Filmmaker Barker, armed with his own screenplay, delivers a mostly lackluster found-footage thriller that contains little in the way of accessible, ingratiating attributes, and there’s little doubt that the movie’s arms-length atmosphere is compounded by an absence of compelling characters – with both Barker and Tomlinson unable to transform their thinly-conceived figures into wholeheartedly (or even partially) sympathetic protagonists. And while the picture admittedly boasts a small handful of compelling images and set-pieces, including (and especially) everything involving an older man who may or may not be in on the various pranks, Milk & Serial‘s predominantly confusing and confounding midsection, which backtracks on itself to an eventually infuriating degree, paves the way for a final stretch that’s hardly as impactful (or shocking) as Barker has obviously intended – thus confirming the film’s place as a less-than-impressive debut that seems unlikely to impress even the hardiest fan of the found-footage genre.

* out of ****