Found-Footage Horror Intrigues But Falls Short

Once every year or two a movie comes along that brings fresh energy to the found-footage horror movie, a terrain that’s been mercilessly, repetitiously over-tilled since “The Blair Witch Project” broke out a quarter-century ago. Unfortunately, “In Our Blood” does not capture that prize for 2024. Though a notch above the subgenre’s norm in terms of acting and production polish, documentarian Pedro Kos’ first narrative feature — in which two filmmakers investigate mysterious disappearances around Las Cruces, New Mexico — ultimately teases expectations too long en route to an underwhelming resolution. 

With overt horror elements delayed until the last 20 minutes or so, the film ends up feeling like an attenuated prologue for a series in the general conceptual (if not budgetary) wheelhouse of “Blade” or “Underworld.” But it’s anyone’s guess whether this Fantasia premiere will spark the kind of enthusiasm that merits a single follow-up, let alone several. 

Emily (Brittany O’Grady) is driving to the southwest from Los Angeles with chatty, genial cameraman Danny (E.J. Bonilla). She’s hired him to film the trip for its personal importance and dramatic potential, since they’ll be visiting the mother she was separated from at age 13, and hasn’t seen in a decade. Emily says ex-addict Samantha (Alanna Ubach) is “not a bad person, she just made a lot of bad choices and hurt a lot of people.” (Danny, too, has maternal wounds — his mother got deported when he was a child.) So it’s an awkward reunion, with Sam “wanting to make it right” with her skeptical daughter, proving that she’s now clean and duly employed. 

Her job is at the Hooper Center, a community organization with a “campus of nonprofits … for the unhoused and vulnerable populations” of this desert county. The visiting duo interview residents who have been beneficiaries of its programs, including drug rehab and treatment for…