I've said it before, I'll say it again, and there may be one day when I listen to my own advice. Found footage horror movies are often full of red flags to warn you of how bad they can be. If it has the same writer, director, and star then that can be a red flag. If all of the main characters are simply named after the actors portraying them then that can be a red flag. And if they feel the need to go into some kind of "night vision" mode in the first half then that can be a red flag.
House On Eden is written by, directed by, and stars Kris Collins, who also stars onscreen as a character named . . . Kris. Kris is part of a trio of vloggers who aim to find haunted locations and make videos there. The other two alongside her are Celina (played by Celina Myers) and Jay (played by Jason-Christopher Mayer). The thin plot sees them looking for, and finding, a house in the middle of nowhere that seems to be abandoned, and yet also looks as if it has had people living in it until fairly recently. Kris had previously heard about the house from others, and she knows it is the perfect place to look for ghosts and get some decent video footage.
There are one or two moments here that are effective. That is almost impossible to mess up when you're delivering a found footage movie set in a fairly spooky location, although one or two movies even manage that. They're obvious, but that doesn't make them any less effective when they happen. I also liked what was trying to be done with the backstory, even if it was all handled with the subtlety of a neon-lit hand smacking viewers in the face.
That's about all of the good stuff though. The rest is pretty poor. Collins does the worst work, I guess, because she wrote a weak screenplay that barely maintains the fairly short 78-minute runtime, she has characters whirling their cameras all over the place as if they were on some kind of funfair ride, includes footage that adds extra scare attempts or atmosphere without having any of the characters check it back, and doesn't even manage to present us with characters who are convincing enough to care about. There's also, sadly, no context for the found footage, which underlines the laziness of it all. The style was picked for convenience, and maybe to keep the budget low, but has no consistency nor any way to add much power to what we're watching (beyond that feeling of closeness and immediacy which is built in to it).
I found out after watching this that Collins is a "social media personality". That explains a lot, and I can imagine that she didn't have to spend too much money on extra equipment while shooting this. Celina Myers AKA CelinaSpookyBoo is also a "social media star", as well as an author, and Mayer seems to have been cast because of his experience with filming and editing. Some of these people may be used to doing online skits. None of them are good enough to lead a movie, especially a horror movie that has so little going for it elsewhere.
I'll hopefully go back to forgetting Collins and co. in the next few days, although I can always check back on this review when I want to remind myself about it often being a very bad idea when people want to try and parlay their social media presence into a movie career.
3/10
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