For It Is Man's Number: found footage

Showing posts with label found footage. Show all posts

Saturday, 21 March 2026

Shudder Saturday: Bodycam (2025)

I have liked a number of movies from Brandon and Ryan Christensen (Brandon being the director, Ryan being a co-writer on a number of their past few features). Bodycam is easily their worst film yet, and it's almost insultingly bad in a number of ways. I'm annoyed with myself for being mildly impressed by the trailer that I watched last month. That didn't really misrepresent anything. I just allowed myself to think that it was a good concept that might be executed well. I was wrong on both counts.

What you have here is a tale of two cops. There's Officer Bryce (Sean Rogerson) and Officer Jackson (Jaime M. Callica). Their shift quickly goes from bad to worse when they're called to a domestic disturbance that leads to the accidental killing of a baby. Bryce is the one who could end up in major hot water, and he wants to figure out a way to change the narrative. That would mean figuring out a way to get rid of their bodycam footage though. Not only does that seem unlikely, the bodycams soon start showing more and more disturbing events as the two officers are manipulated and terrorised by numerous individuals who seem to be serving some malevolent deity.

I have mentioned it many times before, and will undoubtedly do so again, but there are certain warning signs to keep an eye out for when watching any "found footage" film. Bodycam doesn't manage to stay true to the nature of the format, which is actually one of the warning signs, but that would be the main descriptor for it. Many of the early scenes use torchlight, there are hardly any moments that don't have the action being obscured by the movement and unsteadiness of the camerawork, and the third act feels based around one or two main jump scares. I won't namecheck the far superior horror movie that this made me think of, but some imagery in the last scenes may have a lot of people thinking of the same one. (and thinking "I wish I'd watched *insert the title here* instead of this rubbish")

It's hard to really rate the performances of Rogerson and Callica, who both do well enough at hitting their marks, but are hampered by the constantly painful hyperactivity of the pacing and the camerawork. Catherine Lough Haggquist, playing the mother of Callica's character, isn't as obscured, although her performance feels so weak that I wish it had been. Some others onscreen do quite well, despite the fact that they're simply moved around hither and thither in service of the central concept.

Are there some moments to give you chills? I guess so, but nothing that wouldn't work better packed into a short. This isn't an effective feature. It's a potentially enjoyable V/H/S segment, at best. The attempts to build atmosphere don't work, a lot of the first half feels like a waste of time as our two main characters go around in circles trying to cover up something that feels impossible to cover up, and the details littered throughout, meant to create a bigger picture of a dark world pushing at the membrane of our own, feel more tiresome than interesting.

2/10

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Saturday, 11 October 2025

Shudder Saturday: House On Eden (2025)

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

Wednesday, 11 September 2024

Prime Time: Horror In The High Desert (2021)

The good thing about modern technology, and modern distribution models, is that anyone can get a movie made and get it out there. That can also be a bad thing, of course, which is a point I have made many times before. But it's good to finally stumble across a little movie that you've heard about from other film fans, as opposed to something that has had millions of dollars spent on an advertising push that is just trying to ensure some fraction of a massive budget is recouped, and there's quite the lifespan available to gems made by people who have the savvy to add layers of lore and sequel potential to their creations.

Horror In The High Desert is one of those movies, as I was made aware by friends discussing the impact of it, and also how much they had enjoyed the two sequels. I ended up pressing play on this one with less trepidation than I might otherwise have felt, and am happy to say that I can now add my own voice to the many who have already given this some praise

This is the tale of a man (Gary Hinge, played by Eric Mencis) who has gone missing. People are wary of the circumstances surrounding his disappearance, especially when some video evidence reveals some very interesting details from the last time he was seen by people. Writer-director Dutch Marich uses a mockumentary format to present this "unsolved case", presenting testimony from those investigating the case and those personally attached to it (such as Gary's sister, Beverly, played by Tonya Williams Ogden).

As you might expect from this style of film, everything is actually based around some found footage, but Marich does well to avoid using that style throughout the rest of the film. He instead takes time to build up a picture of someone fairly unremarkable, but someone who has become interesting due to the details revealed after their absence. I wouldn't say that everything here helps to build a sense of intrigue and growing dread, but there's enough done to prime viewers for a finale that is impressively eerie and rewarding for those who have been patient.

Everyone plays their part well enough, although neither Mencis nor Ogden are particularly mesmerising in their roles (but they don't have to be, considering the realistic nature of the way they act in front of the camera), and there's a decent central idea that is nicely developed within the runtime, as well as being primed for further development (aka sequels).

Suziey Block, David Morales, and Errol Porter also deserve a mention for filling out the very small core cast, with nobody giving a lesser performance that would easily unbalance something this small and relatively lightweight, and anyone who has enjoyed other films in this vein should find enough to like here. It's far from the best (with many feeling that something like Lake Mungo is at the top of that tree), but it's a well-made slice of faux-realism that leads you down a dark and dangerous path before the end credits roll.

7/10

Saturday, 4 November 2023

Shudder Saturday: Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor (2023)

I am not going to spend too much time here repeating myself, but it's important to remind everyone that I am a big fan of the Hell House LLC trilogy (and I think we can continue to view that as a trilogy, considering how this film bases itself elsewhere, despite strong connections to the events that unfolded at the Abbadon Hotel). Found footage horror done right, I was equally excited and apprehensive when I heard about writer-director Stephen Cognetti making another trip back to that well.

Set in the titular Carmichael Manor, this is all about potential supernatural happenings being investigated by Margot (Bridget Rose Perrotta), her partner, Rebecca (Destiny Leilani Brown), and Margot's brother, Chase (James Liddell). Having investigated a number of places over the years for her website, Margot quickly comes around to the idea that the Carmichael Manor might actually be the one genuinely haunted location that she has investigated. There are random noises heard, figures glimpsed, and horrible bloody clown mannequins that start developing a very bad habit of turning up in unexpected places.

I'm actually quite easy to make nervous when it comes to the right kind of horror. Anything to do with ghosts, or hauntings, has a chance to get me on edge, and keep me there for the duration. Throw in some creepy clowns and you have a perfect storm of factors to keep me wanting to watch events unfold from between my fingers. "The Carmichael Manor" continues to serve up the thrills and chills as consistently as the other Hell House LLC movies, and I view the whole series as a great example of how to do this kind of movie. Whether or not you end up enjoying these as much as I do, they really help to highlight the chasm that exists between the very worst and very best of found footage horror movies. Some people still think that you can make a movie by getting some friends together over a weekend spent wandering around an old building while filming a load of inactivity on your smartphone. That's not how you make an effective horror movie. This is.

Although there's the standard problem of having characters continually filming long after they would have bumped it down the list of priorities (with "staying safe and alive" being moved to the top of the list), the cast do a very good job here of maintaining their fluctuating group dynamic, delivering the required exposition, and becoming more and more afraid as the situation gets more serious. Liddell may have to play his character with a bit more emotional turbulence (he's brought along to help, but also to keep him busy after a recent "episode" that had people worried about him), but he does well enough with what he's given to work with. Perrotta and Brown do even better though, less hampered by the script, and both moving further and further into the "eye of the storm" as everything builds toward a foregone conclusion.

Although absolutely fantastic when it comes to building tension and presenting scary set-pieces, the film does falter when it comes to the unnecessary spiderwebbing plot. With the found footage framed by segments in which people talk about how events unfolded (hence the foregone conclusion, another mis-step in the script), Cognetti takes the opportunity to bring in more of the Abbadon Hotel lore. That's a real shame, particularly when the backstory of the Carmichael Manor is interesting enough as it is. I would have rather had less explanation, despite how nicely it does tie things together, and more ambiguity, and I rolled my eyes at a last-minute "reveal" that was signposted from very early on in the movie. It didn't stop me being a fan though.

Four films in, the Hell House LLC series has a chance at becoming one of my favourite ever horror brands, and I look forward to whatever comes next from Cognetti, whether he moves into new territory or finds other ways to tell more stories in this movie universe.

7/10

Wednesday, 30 August 2023

Prime Time: The Lost Episode (2012)

There were three things I didn’t know when I decided to press play on The Lost Episode. First of all, it was directed by Michael Rooker. I thought it might have been someone different with the same name, but no, it is THAT Michael Rooker. Second, it has about half a dozen alternate titles and is part of some loosely-connected series of ultra-low-budget horror movies. Third, it’s absolutely awful.

Although one or two movies have angered me recently, The Lost Episode takes the prize for the laziest and most insulting movie I have seen this year. It’s clear that, yet again, people came up with this idea and decided that unfussy horror fans will still swallow this down like a sugar-coated lump of animal faeces.

The plot is simple. A group of people enter an apparently haunted building and start poking around. Ghosts soon join them, but logic never does.

Surprisingly, there is supposed to be a proper script, written by Joe Nelms and Sue Bailey, although I am not sure how much effort they put into the actual dialogue (which is awful . . . especially coming from people who have actually written one proper movie that I enjoy before this, the very amusing Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The Thirteenth). Almost every minute of this is terrible, terribly dull, and featuring characters it is impossible to care about.

I am not going to mention any of the cast here, mainly because I don’t want to be too negative and nasty towards a bunch of people I doubt I will see in any major lead roles, although I am surprised by how many movie credits some of them have. Nobody does good work here, but I am going to put all of the blame on the broad shoulders of Rooker, who directs with all the style and skill of a dropped bowl of mashed potato.

I really like Rooker, I often love Rooker, but this attempt to move from acting into directing is an absolute disaster. Visuals are crude and ugly throughout, and there’s never a feeling of anyone really being at the helm. It is unsurprising, and quite a relief, to see that Rooker hasn’t tried his hand at directing anything else. Maybe he did this as a challenge, or a favour, but it’s clear that he is much more suited to being in front of the camera (which he also manages here, somehow directing himself in one of his worst onscreen performances).

One to avoid at all costs, and truly one of the worst films I have ever seen, not even saved by the relatively short runtime under 80 minutes. I know that some people will read this review and think “it can’t be THAT bad”. It is. If you decide to check it out for yourself then don’t say that you weren’t warned.

1/10

Friday, 12 May 2023

The Outwaters (2022)

I’m not sure I have the energy for this. Despite a multitude of films to choose from, I decided to give my time to The Outwaters towards the end of what was a pretty tough work week. I really shouldn’t have bothered, because what we have here is another insultingly murky and incoherent found footage horror movie from someone too lazy to give characters actual first names that differs from the actors portraying them.

A bunch of people go into the desert to do some stuff, aiming to shoot some video content, and things eventually go mad and bloody. That is the entire plot summary for The Outwaters, and I would genuinely implore most people to avoid it.

Written and directed by Robbie Banfitch (who also stars as a character named, wait for it . . . Robbie), there’s a good idea in the middle of this film, but two things completely ruin that idea. First of all, the runtime is too long. It isn’t over two hours, which is a big plus, but it’s far longer than it should be. This barely has enough to fill 80 minutes, so clocking in at about 110 minutes feels unforgivably misjudged, especially with so much of the first half of the movie feeling like unnecessary filler. The second big criticism I have is the shooting style, with the image often presented in just one small part of the screen illuminated by torchlight. This has happened in many other found footage movies, but it doesn’t usually take up so much of the screentime.

There are a few good moments, intriguing glimpses of nastiness that hint at larger terrors just outside the frame, but they’re not good enough to make up for the rest of the film. The script is terrible, leaving viewers to watch the madness afflict a bunch of undeveloped characters that nobody cares about, the plotting feels too meandering and random (although I may have missed some details interspersed throughout the many badly-shot scenes that felt like an endurance test), and the whole thing ultimately feels unworthy of your time. I know some people have liked this, I just cannot figure out how they managed it, but I cannot imagine anyone thinking about this after the end credits, or enthusiastically picking it for a rewatch.

The easy way to sum this up, the lazy description, is to refer to it as an adult take on Skinamarink set in a desert. If you think that sounds great then fill your boots. If you cannot think of anything worse then do yourself a favour and immediately forget that this exists. Banfitch has made something, good for him, but I will be ready to praise him when he makes something that doesn’t feel so lazy and cynical.

3/10

Tuesday, 14 March 2023

Followed (2018)

I didn’t think I was going to love Followed, but I was in the mood for some undemanding, found footage, horror. As much as it can lead to some of the worst of the genre, it can also provide a number of easy and entertaining scares. Followed has some easy and entertaining scares, I suppose I should say that before I get too distracted with my criticism of it, but they aren’t good enough to make up for the laziness, and poor taste, of the main idea. And I say this as someone who can enjoy superior tasteless fare with the best of them.

The story revolves around a vlogger named Mike (Matthew Solomon) who decides to visit the infamous, and allegedly haunted, Lennox Hotel. Mike and his colleagues will check out the whole hotel, but they will focus on emulating the last moments of Meghan Kim, last seen acting very odd in an elevator.

Do you see what I mean already about laziness and poor taste? Yes, Followed is a horror movie that basically wants to recreate everything you have probably already heard about Elisa Lam and the Cecil Hotel. Which might not seem that bad if that story still lacked an explanation, still had the full mystery surrounding it, but those who have fully explored that case without wearing a tinfoil hat, or desperately shoehorning their own theories into the actual events, will know that what happened was actually a very sad and tragic accident, undoubtedly caused by some mental health issues. The story of Elisa Lam was intriguing, and I am sure it will crop up again and again in the years to come as younger people stumble across that bizarre elevator footage, but then it was explained. The intrigue is gone. All that leaves is footage of someone stressed and ill.

Considering what actually happened with the Elisa Lam case, and the nauseating comments from people who would visit the hotel and somehow think they could feel a connection to her, I am not entirely against something being created that skewers those armchair detectives and conspiracy theorists who travelled to the hotel and made vlogs about their time there. It would have to be a lot better than this though.

Writer Todd Klick (as good a surname as any if you are going to write a film about a vlogger looking to boost traffic and subscriber numbers) doesn’t do anything clever with the concept, adding details that are as groan-inducing as they are unnecessary. I will admit that the final scene is an attempt at a decent “punchline”, but it is too little too late. Director Antoine Le sets up a couple of fun scares throughout, but he loses his way whenever it is time to flesh out any characters or keep propelling the plot along. This isn’t a long film, just over an hour and a half, but the first half really drags in between those infrequent scares.

The cast are okay, I guess. Solomon is joined by Tim Drier, Sam Valentine, and Caitlin Grace, his little movie crew, but they struggle to overcome the weak script. Kelsey Griswold, Christopher Ross Martin, and John Savage play other key characters, and are equally hampered by the script, and poor Sarah Chang ends up playing the part of Elisa . . . I mean Meghan Kim.

If this had been written better, and that would include more memorable characters and a healthy sense of disdain for them, then this could have been worthwhile. It could have been easier to forgive the feeling of it being a squalid little “cash-in”. It isn’t though. It is a weak script with weak presentation. Just watch a documentary on the Cecil Hotel instead.

3/10

Sunday, 16 October 2022

Netflix And Chill: Paranormal Investigation (2018)

If you look around online for information about Paranormal Investigation then you won’t find too much out there. That isn’t surprising, considering how insubstantial and eminently forgettable the film is.

Some friends decide to have fun times with a spirit board, which always goes well in horror movies, and one of them, Dylan (Jean-Baptiste Heuet), soon starts to act in a way that worries those around him. It ends up falling to Andrei (Andrei Indreies) to get to the bottom of things, and hopefully save Dylan’s soul.

I picked Paranormal Investigation as part of my viewing schedule for two reasons. One, it was fairly short (I wanted something at around the 90-minute mark). Two, I wanted to add some world cinema to the mix, realising I had mainly stuck with English language movies for my Halloween horrors so far this year. I wish I had taken the time to find something better.

Writer-director Franck Phelizon seems to have had one overdone idea, and somehow figured he could craft a worthwhile film around it. He was wrong. This film could easily have been a 10-minute short, which would have been much more enjoyable, but we are instead stuck with a feature that feels stuffed full of padding, none of which is at all interesting.

It doesn’t help that Heuet and Indreies are unable to bring anything to their under-written roles. Neither manage to feel as strong and forceful as they should, and that leaves viewers watching everything play out without any one character to really root for, especially as the supporting cast soon disappears. The focus stays on Dylan and Andrei, to detrimental effect.

It is okay to do a movie that doesn’t have obvious scares or jumps. You can, instead, create tension and atmosphere. You can walk carefully towards a rewarding finale, increasing the creep factor until everyone starts to digest the full impact of what they just watched while the end credits roll. This doesn’t do that, leaving it as a whole lot of nothing.

Don’t bother investigating this one.

2/10

Saturday, 15 October 2022

Shudder Saturday: Deadstream (2022)

Joseph Winter, who co-directed and co-wrote this film with Vanessa Winter (the two being husband and wife), stars as Shawn Ruddy, a disgraced online personality who is desperate to get his video channel making good money again after being forced into a time out, due to a specific incident that becomes clear as the movie plays out. In order to come back with a bang, Shawn places himself in an allegedly haunted house, deliberately trapping himself inside and aiming to show himself being scared in a way that will guarantee his live-stream as an unmissable event.

I have seen people describe Deadstream as being very much like The Evil Dead blended with the "found footage" style, and I don't entirely disagree with that description. The main character is teased and tortured in a way that you could easily imagine also happening to Ash. I've also seen people criticise the film for moments that show the main character seeming racist and/or privileged and insensitive. I disagree there. Not that the character ISN'T a bad person, he clearly is, but that is part of the point. He is someone who gave a grovelling apology because he had to, in order to get his "brand" back on track, but he has never really thought about the impact of his foolhardy actions. And even when he has a moment to be a bit more genuinely remorseful, when he decides that things are so bad he may as well aim to be more open and honest than usual, he drops the ball by tying his apology to a lame attempt to appeal to a demographic that he clearly doesn't really care about. The script hints at all of this throughout, because we're shown Shawn being thoughtless and insensitive, at best, from the very beginning.

It's the script that I am going to praise first. The Winters know exactly what they are targeting, and they hit a bulls-eye every time. Ruddy is the kind of over the top, loud and lively, internet personality that you can find on every other YouTube channel. He doesn't like anything, he LOVES IT. He doesn't really want to create anything other than traffic and monetisation for his videos, despite interacting with those who view and comment on his work. The backstories are also nicely crafted, for both the house and Ruddy himself, and the format feels well-handled, with the camerawork being controlled by someone trying to deliver what he claims will be the most cinematic streaming experience possible (even down to supplying his own horror movie soundtrack from a small tape player). The film posits Ruddy as the main character, but it never tries to show him as a hero, or even someone who is any good. Because he isn't.

Mr. Winter is excellent in the main role, on screen for the majority of the runtime. He knows exactly how energetic and good-humoured (and inauthentic) his character should be, allowing the cracks to show frequently enough to make any third act revelations satisfyingly unsurprising. Viewers sense something darker in the details to be revealed, which is much better than having an ending that attempts to pull the rug from under everyone's feet. There are a number of other performers, many of them under some great make up, but the other one to praise is Melanie Stone, playing a young woman, Chrissy, who locates Shawn and wants to keep him company during his stay in the haunted house. Stone is enjoyably impish, and comes in at just the right time to save viewers from becoming exhausted by Ruddy's schtick.

A seemingly silly film with a few serious points to be made, this is horror as absolutely rollicking entertainment. It is, first and foremost, all about entertaining viewers, and the film-makers find a real sweet spot by mixing in a number of perfectly-executed scares with some tension-relieving laughs. It IS a horror comedy, but the fact that I forgot to specify that until now is a testament to how well the comedy is used to simply make the escalating horror and madness bearable.

8/10

Wednesday, 12 October 2022

Prime Time: Ouija Death Trap (2014)

I do it to myself every year, without fail. In a bid to explore the full range that the horror genre has to offer me, I inevitably pick something that should never have been plucked from the bottom of the barrel. Ouija Death Trap (AKA Spirits, apparently) is that movie for this year. It was so bad that I almost decided against writing about it, because I know that other people will read this review and think "it can't be THAT bad" before then forcing themselves to endure it, but there are one or two aspects that a) save it from being THE worst of the worst, and b) are worth discussing.

Here's the plot. Four young people head into a building with video cameras at the ready. That's it. The building is supposedly haunted. There is one main male character and three females. And they get a fright when they wander about in darkness and bump into a janitor (played by John O'Hara). Things really start to get wild when the janitor leaves though, with things doing much more than just going bump in the night. Spirits are seen, panic starts to build, and it isn't long until people start to disappear.

Here's the best thing about Ouija Death Trap. It has a runtime even shorter than the 90 minutes listed on IMDb, by the time you account for the titles and end credits.

There are some things to enjoy here, especially for a film viewer very easy to please (me, that's me). The practical effects throughout aren't too bad, and the scares are enjoyably overt and ridiculous. This isn't a film that wants to develop a creepy atmosphere with a slow build to whatever the finale might deliver. This is a film that wants to throw you into a real, funfair-style, house of horrors.

That's all my positivity used up though. The first thing that puzzles me about this film is how it took THREE people to write it. I'm amazed there's a script in the first place, and maybe Amanda Payton, Johnnie Reed, and director Todd Sheets spent most of their time plotting the scares, relying on their cast member to come up with decent dialogue while they reacted to the events unfolding around them. That was a mistake, and I defy anyone to watch this entire film and then tell me even one bit of dialogue that felt as if it was placed in the movie with even the smallest amount of care and consideration.

It might have helped if the people onscreen were better at acting. William Christopher Epperson, Jessica Hopkins, Dakota Lassen, and Raven Reed may be lovely people, but good actors they are not. Nor is O'Hara. You would think that one out of five would justify their inclusion in the cast, but that's not the case. I won't single anyone out for extra criticism, especially as the acting is uniformly poor from everyone, but there was one cast member who easily ranks as one of the absolute worst performers I have seen in a feature film.

Maybe it's not their fault. Maybe these people signed up for something that they then realised wasn't going to be worth their time or energy. The plot, what little there is of it, is bloody awful, the camerawork is painfully bad (with the excuse, of course, that we're just seeing the footage shot by the characters onscreen), and the end result is a feature so lazy and slapdash that most viewers will feel a mix of anger and relief when it's all over.

Better actors might have made this much more bearable, but we'll never know. As it is, I've been generous with my rating because of those easy jump scares. And if you don't think I've been generous . . . that just proves that you haven't seen the film.

2/10

Saturday, 16 July 2022

Shudder Saturday: The Medium (2021)

The only reason I didn't get around to watching The Medium any sooner was due to the runtime. 130 minutes is far from the lengthiest movie runtime I have sat through (although I think I have made my thoughts on the bloated art of Lav Diaz clear enough), but I kept filling up my viewing schedule with shorter, generally "easier", choices. Which is something I should really stop doing, particularly when it delays me enjoying something as good as this.

It's all about a documentary crew following a medium named Nim (Sawanee Utoomma). Nim has spent many years possessed by the spirit of a local deity, but she only ended up that way because her sister, Noi (Sirani Yankittikan), didn't want to accept her destined role. Noi doesn't seem to have had the most fortunate life since turning her back on the chance to become a medium, but things may be about to change as her daughter, Mink (Narilya Gulmongkolp), looks set to be chosen as the successor to her Aunt Nim. But details soon come to light that cast doubt on the whole situation, and Nim wonders just what is force is trying to gain hold of her neice.

Director Banjong Pisanthanakun really knows how to make effective scares. Their directorial feature debut was Shutter, still a highly recommended ghost movie, and they have spent most of the past two decades delivering a nice variety of chilling tales. Writers Chantavit Dhanasevi (who has worked with Pisanthanakun a number of times) and Na Hong-jin (who is on a real role after working on The Chaser, The Yellow Sea, and The Wailing before this) do a fantastic job of setting up the situation and characters before starting to develop a building sense of dread, drip-feeding the weird and scary moments until just really letting loose in a finale that is full of nightmare imagery.

Utoomma is good in her role, as is Yankittikan, but it's Gulmongkolp who becomes the focus of the film, with viewers getting to watch her behaviour become more and more erratic as she is unwillingly changed by a selfish spirit. Gulmongkolp is excellent, starting off as a typically bright and fairly happy young woman before quickly changing for the worse. Aside from the moments of horror and/or madness, Gulmongkolp excels as she shows the strain of carrying a burden she cannot seem to put her finger on. Her mind and spirt may be a battleground, but her body is just as much a casualty.

Shot in the "found footage"/documentary style, this does a lot of what you expect from that format. You get moments in which footage is checked and found to contain some extra horror. You get details that don't necessarily come into focus during the first sweep of the camera. There's some night-vision work during the final act. It feels better than most though. Although things go from bad to worse, it's not entirely implausible to think of a documentary crew sticking around to get some footage that will give them some instant fame, kudos, and notoriety. Of course, there's no easy exit when people realise, far too late, that they really need to make their escape.

Full of impressive moments, with a runtime that doesn't feel as long as it is, and with a small handful of characters that are nicely fleshed out, The Medium is a near-perfect modern horror. You are drawn into a strange world, unless you have spent a lot of time in Thailand, and the film-makers acclimatise you to the lifestyle and the large role that faith plays in the lives of everyone shown before dragging you along an increasingly dark path that you just know isn't going to end anywhere pleasant.

9/10

Thursday, 9 June 2022

Dashcam (2021)

There is no point in me trying to act coy here. I hated Dashcam. Absolutely hated it. And I hated it all the more due to the fact that the main creative people involved, director Rob Savage and co., gave us one of the best horror movies that made innovative use of the global pandemic restrictions, Host.

Dashcam is, despite the title, a mix of dashcam footage and footage filmed through a couple of different phones. I guess “Whateverisclosesttohandcam” was judged to be far too wieldy a title. It shows Annie Hardy, playing Annie Hardy, having a very rough evening, and there is fun to be had, I think, from seeing bad things happen to a bad person (Hardy is an obnoxiously aggressive anti-vaxxer, anti-masker, MAGA-hat-wearing type). That is the aim anyway. I didn’t have fun. At all. I spent the runtime of the movie stuck with someone I hated, having her tiresome presence punctuated by tiresome jump scares and a LOT of awful camerawork (because it is “found footage” so it doesn’t matter that you cannot make out what is going on . . . obviously).

Look, from what I have heard recently, there are people who believe that Hardy is playing someone onscreen not a million miles removed from her real persona. I am willing to consider that she may have spent the past year or so performing an extended piece of Kaufman-esque performance art though. Unfortunately, any other aspect of her character fails to make up for the overwhelming unpleasantness. It is mind-boggling to think of anyone putting up with her crap (co-star Amar Chadha-Patel is an absolute saint at times) and she doesn’t even convince as a talented musician, considering she is preoccupied with creating rhymes that revolve around variations of the words “penis” and “ass”. Hardy, onscreen anyway, is a foot-stamping child. Movie characters do not have to be likeable, but having even one small saving grace, be it humour, skill, or a bit of charm, can really help make a movie much easier to endure.

And this is an endurance test. From the horrible camerawork throughout to the “amusing” rants and lyrics delivered by Hardy, from the nonsensical set up of everything to a set-piece that creates tension from someone, ummmm, feeling the need to rescue a small keyboard that then makes a loud noise at an inconvenient time. Almost every minute of Dashcam is excruciating, and nothing on the shocks and scares front does enough to outweigh the multitude of negatives.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Savage, alongside Gemma Hurley and Jed Shepherd, who showed such inventiveness and skill in their previous feature, has been replaced by some talentless clone behind the camera here. Where there was once an ability to create real tension and entertainment there now just seems to be a void, both technically and artistically.

There’s no reason to think that those involved didn’t realise what they were doing. There is little middle ground here, Savage has served up something that viewers will either love or hate. I hated it, thanks, and I doubt I will see a worse studio film this year.

2/10

Wednesday, 2 March 2022

Prime Time: A Warning To The Curious (2013)

First of all, this has nothing to do with the famous ghost story by M. R. James. Let's make that clear right now. That is a classic tale. This is a slice of hot garbage. It may be the easiest review I have written in some time, considering all I need to do is string together a load of expletives and drop in the names of the cast and crew in between them.

The plot is so thin that it's almost translucent. It's a found footage film. A group of amateur ghost hunters, who apparently go ghost hunting most weekends, go to an abandoned location. From there, they are directed to another abandoned location by someone who doesn't seem at all weird and simply there to move the plot on. It's not long until the camera starts picking up what could be evil spirits. Oh, and there's a record on a turntable that everyone decides to play and listen to, basically doing The Evil Dead tape player spiel, but so much worse. At least it gave some work to Danny Webb anyway (credited as "The Voice"), who is probably the only person involved in this that I don't now hate.

Written and directed by Ali Djarar, with him also taking on every role behind the scenes (although locations were used almost as they were found, and it seems that very little else was needed)

Shot in a very short amount of time, and for a very small amount of money, what you have here is a prime example of someone mistakenly thinking that it is very easy to get some people and cameras together in the same place and just make a found footage film. I’m not surprised to see what this is the only film from Djarar, which I would suspect he funded entirely himself, and it stands out as an object lesson in how not to do this kind of thing.

Most of the runtime is full of scenes that play out for too long, don’t have the right focus, and continue to be boring even when the sense of creepiness is supposed to be building. Bearing in mind that so many of these films gradually get scarier and scarier, leading to that standard third act use of night-vision, the fact that most of this film is shot in that night-vision style is one glaring mis-step that typifies how much Djarar misunderstands the kind of film he is trying to make.

I will be polite to the cast, mainly because none of them are memorable (certainly not for the right reasons). One actor playing a detective may be the worst of them all, but I think that has as much to do with the awful script and presentation than his performance. At least he is a character that viewers can always identify, unlike the identi-kit mix of ghost hunters who all look far too similar when wandering about a dark and empty building.

Ironically, this does at least manage to serve as a warning to the curious. If you are curious about making your own horror movie, and if you think found footage is an easy and cheap way to get a good result, then be warned. This shows you just how bad the end result can be, and it is enough to make me never want to see anything else that Djarar might try to make.

2/10

Friday, 4 February 2022

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018)

Found footage horror has been very hit and miss since it became an easy way to create entertaining movies. For every big success, and there have been a few, you have to endure many that were made by people who just didn’t realise what it actually takes to put together something genuinely decent. I could name a dozen or so that you should avoid, but I would rather not mention them again anywhere.

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is a good found footage horror, and I figured I should state that from the beginning. Based, although not filmed, in an infamously spooky, and allegedly haunted, building in Korea, it delivers many of the expected tropes with skill and panache.

The very basic premise is this: a group of YouTubers want to visit the titular asylum for a night of live-streaming that they hope will boost their viewing figures and gain them a massive amount of internet fame. Things get spooky and odd, and you just know that it’s not going to end well.

Directed by Jeong Beom-sik, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Park Sang-min, this has elements now that are very familiar to fans of this type of thing. You get the initial scares being faked by people who want to create a story they can star in, you get the geographical confusion and madness that stops anyone from leaving, and you get a constant increase in tension and scares on the way to a shocking ending. It’s all handled well enough, and there are some moments here that feature some impressively freaky imagery.

The cast all do well, although very few manage to stand out as individuals from the group. That isn’t really their fault, it is just the way the material keeps people grouped together as the building is explored. Wi Ha-joon is the de facto leader of the group, and that allows him to stand out a bit easier, especially in the many scenes that have him overseeing the footage from a base just outside the building.

This is easily one of the better found footage horrors I have seen in the past few years, but it falls short of being up there with the very best. That’s partially due to many of the tropes now being a bit too familiar and partially due to some sequences that don’t push things as far as they can. It supplies some creepiness and good jumps though, and feels like it has been made by people who care about the quality of the final product.

7/10

Tuesday, 7 September 2021

There's Something In The Shadows (2021)

Writer-director John Williams has an anthology horror movie coming out soon called Tales Of The Creeping Death, and I am keen to see what he can do in that format. That is despite the fact that he has, with There’s Something In The Shadows, delivered one of the very worst found footage movies that I’ve ever seen.

There are good elements here, if they were separated and placed in a movie that had any way to use them coherently. First of all, the main cast are a group revolving around someone who presents YouTube videos of his investigations into supernatural shenanigans. That character is played by John Solomonides. Seems okay so far, right? Then you have the fact that they are travelling to Loch Ness. A found footage movie set on the banks of Loch Ness? I am there. Then you have a theory that a Bigfoot creature may be in that area. Wait . . . what? And there could be portals allowing for these creatures to appear, as well as causing other strange phenomena.

If you read all of the above and felt the same way as I did about it, you can see why I checked out early with this one. I knew that Williams didn’t care about what he was creating here. He just wanted to throw everything together, get some people acting amongst lots of trees, and move to a third act that makes you wish you had just rewatched The Blair Witch Project instead.

Solomonides doesn’t seem great in his role, but nobody is. They are stuck with the unenviable task of trying to make this nonsense seem even remotely believable. The other main cast members are Pete Bennett, Darren McAree, Williams himself, and Steve Wood. Fair play to them all for doing what is asked of them, considering what is asked of them seems like some kind of elaborate prank to rope them into an abysmal movie.

There’s nothing else to say, other than negative comments. The camerawork gets shakier when Williams needs to hide his extremely low budget, the opening title card even mis-spells the word “amateur” (admittedly, maybe some kind of small gag I just didn’t get), and there is a dummy fall/throw here on par with the worst, and most hilarious, I usually see in Italian thrillers of the 1970s.

As mentioned in the first paragraph, I am hopeful for the next movie from Williams. That at least should feel more like a proper movie, instead of a weekend lark with mates. But I advise everyone to avoid this one completely, with my generous rating simply based on the fact that the second half just managed to avoid being completely boring.

Oh, there’s also a closing credit that somehow made me resent the film even more. Plan a film around the concepts of film-making, not around a gimmick you think could excuse any and all shortcomings.

2/10

Wednesday, 14 April 2021

Prime Time: The Taking Of Deborah Logan (2014)

Please note, for some reason, this is often now listed under the title "The Taking".

I have joked for many years that when I forget something, or lose something, I am having “a senior moment”. I am sure I am not alone in using this phrase in a light-hearted way. But the reality is that, as is the case for so many others, the thought of any illness that would affect me in that way is terrifying. You lose yourself, you cannot be sure of what is real in your life, and you rely on everyone else to keep you attached to whoever you once were.

The Taking Of Deborah Logan is a found footage film that uses the idea of dementia and illness being equatable to possession, and it’s not much of a stretch. I am sure that many people who have watched loved ones suffer from such brain-warping illnesses could tell you how strange it is to see someone turn into someone completely different.

Jill Larson plays Deborah Logan, and Anne Ramsay is her daughter, Sarah. Deborah is getting worse and worse, in terms of her health, and an arrangement has been struck with a crew wanting to document some of her journey. It doesn’t take long to see that there may be more to Deborah’s illness than the usual medical issues.

Director Adam Robitel, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Gavin Heffernan, is capable enough when it comes to dealing with thrills and chills. He may not be any kind of master of horror, but he knows how to create some enjoyable creepiness and impressive jump scares. The first half of the film is a bit stronger, when considering the boundaries blurred between what can be diagnosed and what seems to be supernatural, but the second half brings together the main plot strands and delivers a few great shocks (including one haunting image that you may have seen in gif form on the internet, whether you have seen the film or not).

The cast all convince in their roles, but most scenes are carried by Ramsay and Larson, with Ramsay easily conveying the pain and confusion of a loving grown-up child unable to find ways to help a parent, and the latter perfectly pitching her performance as she weaves between extremely vulnerable and extremely menacing.

Navigating the tone well, The Taking Of Deborah Logan only really stumbles when it feels the need to make one story strand completely overt. Some ambiguity and uncertainty would have made this a modern classic, but it holds up as a strong modern horror, and certainly one of the better found footage movies from the past decade.

7/10

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Thursday, 25 March 2021

The Mirror (2014)

I quite like writer-director Edward Boase. He was kind enough to let me conduct a phone interview with him many years ago. I mistrust mirrors. They show you what is all around us, but different. So Edward Boase making a horror movie about a bad mirror (to put it mildly) seemed like a good combination.

Three flatmates, two of them in a relationship, buy a mirror that has supposed links to a dark past. Setting up a camera in front of the mirror, and aiming to document their own experiences with it, it’s not longer before strange things start to happen. And strange soon starts to become dangerous. Very dangerous.

Taking the “found footage” approach to this idea would seem to make complete sense, and Boase (fleshing out a story created by himself and Keidrych Wasley) seems to know the potential of the material here. He paces things almost as you would expect, although the third act kicks in a little bit sooner than I thought it would, and conversations are often a mix of banter and drip-feeding background details that become more important to the plot as things get worse for the main characters.

Unfortunately, although some may view it differently, Boase keeps things a bit too restrained for the first half of the movie. Even when things get a bit more obvious, and graphic, certain aspects of the film remain frustratingly hidden offscreen. I admire the approach, but it does make you wonder why the setting up of the camera was so important when that footage is used so infrequently.

Joshua Dickinson, Nate Fallows, and Jemma Dallender are fine in their roles. They may be a bit mishandled by the script, which moved between calm to incredible intensity before going inexplicably calm again, but they’re naturalistic enough, and their interactions with one another feel generally believable.

It may not be a bad film, from the central idea to the technical side of things, but it’s far from an essential viewing for horror fans. It’s not serious enough to be thought-provoking and disturbing, nor is it simplistically entertaining enough to make for a bit of fun you could easily recommend to others. It sits very much in the middle, which is where it also ends up with my final rating.

5/10

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Saturday, 31 October 2020

Shudder Saturday: Jeruzalem (2015)

Largely shot in the "found footage" style, Jeruzalem is a horror movie that has a couple of good ideas contained within it, yet ultimately fumbles things as it tries to get more and more terrifying on the way to the final scene. It also isn't helped by the better moments reminding you of things you already saw in the superior [*Rec] series.

Danielle Jadelyn is Sarah Pullman, a young woman about to set off on a holiday to Tel Aviv with her friend, Rachel (Yael Grobglas). Sarah is still grieving the loss of her brother, and Rachel hopes the holiday will help her improve her state of mind. Given a gift from her father, a pair of Google glass spectacles, Sarah can hopefully have the holiday of a lifetime. Changing plans when they meet a young man, Kevin (Yon Tumarkin), who is interested in religious mythology, our leads decide to head to Jerusalem instead. They get rooms in a hostel, where they meet the charming Omar (Tom Graziani), and all seems good. Unfortunately, Jerusalem is about to go through a very bad time, involving dark forces and dangerous entities that act a bit like zombies.

Here are things that Jeruzalem gets right. It generally uses proper names when referencing the technology (which is always preferable to making them all up, where you end up with someone logging into Friendbook and Generic Telecall app), the central characters are likeable, and the creatures are well-realised once they start bringing chaos to the city.

And here's what it gets wrong. As with so many of these films, the gimmick of the style is forced, especially in the third act. It all gets a bit too jittery and hard to keep track of in places. The characters are made to be increasingly stupid, in an attempt to draw everything out for the finale. And there's a plot beat during the last ten minutes that is only saved from being one of the dumbest things I have seen in the past decade of horror because the past decade of horror has had some amazingly dumb stuff in it.

The cast all do a decent job, but they suffer when the script forces them to stay on the tracks laid out for them by writer-directors the PAZ brothers (Doron Paz and Yoav Paz). The good ideas impress by the halfway point, but quickly lose their lustre when the film devolves into the usual shaky-cam, dark pathways, and jump scares.

Planting itself exactly at the mid-point of any random selection of found footage horrors that you could select, Jeruzalem isn't a terrible way to spend just over 90 minutes. There's some very impressive imagery dotted throughout, usually just a brief glimpse as characters run away in fear. It's just a shame that it couldn't have been a bit better. And a bit less silly in places.

5/10

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Friday, 10 July 2020

Mockingbird (2014)

Writer-director Bryan Bertino started his film career pretty strong. He gave us The Strangers, which a lot of people view as one of the better home invasion horrors in the past couple of decades. He also played a part in giving us the better sequel to that movie. When I discovered Mockingbird, it was in a bundle of movies that I'd mostly heard of. This was one of the only titles I didn't know about. There's a reason for that. It's not good.

Three people are left a video camera on their doorstep, each one thinking they have won it and may have the chance to win something more if they keep recording. You have Tom (Todd Stashwick) and Emmy (Audrey Marie Anderson), a loving couple who also have children, you have Beth (Alexandra Lydon), a young student, and you have Leonard (Barak Hardley), a "momma's boy" who is also given a clown suit, and make-up, along with the camera.

That's the start of everything here. People think they have won a prize, there's some celebration and fun, and then they are told to keep recording or die. So they keep recording. Which all adds up to a found footage horror movie that jumps between the various parties, leaving viewers wondering about the motivation as it builds to a climax that is as predictable as it is decidedly un-shocking, despite what Bertino thinks he is giving the audience.

First of all, the acting from everyone isn't bad. Stashwick and Anderson are the best of the leads, feeling the most authentic as they play around with the camera before things take a turn for the manacing. Lydon is left to flounder around alone, becoming more and more frightened before the other characters, because she's the character who seems the least likely to want to keep using a videocamera without any specific reason. Hardley, given the props of the clown suit and make-up, is okay, but his enthusiasm never feels quite real. It's necessary though, especially as things start to ramp up in the third act.

That's the positive out of the way then. I have nothing more. At all.

Bertino obviously thought he had something worthy of a movie here, he had an idea of using the video footage to create something with multiple strands that will ultimately start to twine together before the end credits roll. It just doesn't work. This is due to a number of reasons. One, we don't really care about any of the characters. Two, it doesn't solidify the threat to make it convincing that people would keep recording. Three, viewers will see what is coming a mile away as it all leads up to the grand finale. Four, it all gets harder and harder to believe as the plot becomes more interconnected and complex, which is even sillier when you get a reveal at the very end of the film.

I've already seen a lot of bad horror movies this year, but this feels like one of the worst of them. It's competently done, in some ways, but it's also completely mishandled throughout. One to avoid, and one to stay at the bottom of a barrel until it is forgotten by everyone. Which hopefully includes myself.

2/10

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Saturday, 25 January 2020

Shudder Saturday: Noroi: The Curse (2005)

Another hand-held horror means another divisive movie that fans should still seek out and make up their own minds about. This is a film I first watched over a decade ago, after having it recommended to me by many other horror movie fans, and it's one I was long overdue to revisit.

Imagine a cross between The Blair Witch Project and The Grudge and you're close to the overall content of this movie. It's another videotaped horror but this time most of it is edited together in readiness for a video doc that was never completed by a supernatural investigator (Masafumi Kobayashi, played by Jin Muraki) who disappeared.

I certainly had a feeling of dread while watching this movie (does anyone do dread better than our Asian friends?) but it's worth noting that the creepy moments, the genuinely creepy moments, are interspersed sparingly throughout the third act. That's not to say that you can't be scared by the rest of the film, it's just that the other details are deliberately layered in a way to build up to one hell of a finale.

The direction by Kôji Shiraishi, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Naoyuki Yokota, is spot on. Shiraishi has a filmography well worth exploring, and his name will be familiar to fans of "J-horror", but this is most possibly his finest hour. Everything feels genuine throughout, helped by the performances. Muraki is convincing in his way with everyone he meets, adapting to how they are in his direct interactions, Satoru Jitsunashi is believably jittery and unnerved as an apparent psychic, Mitsuo Hori, and Marika Matsumoto does well in a role that has her playing a version of herself.

The only main downfall to the film is that I felt I was two or three steps ahead of the investigator when apparent "revelations" appeared throughout, therefore I can't recommend this as highly as something that uses the format in a similar way, but keeps things moving a bit quicker in a way that stops you having the time to think ahead ([*Rec] being the main example that springs to mind).

Having said that, it would be remiss of me not to highly recommend any film that goes on at length about ectoplasmic worms, contains at least two subtly spooky ghost moments, and managed to get me to put the lights back on for a while when the sun went down. It's not quite the flawless classic that some of the praise for it might lead you to believe, although it certainly comes closer than most films done in this style,

Noroi: The Curse is definitely one to make time for. It's a crime that we've never had a decent disc release for it here in the UK, because so many people have instead ended up watching it on . . . various other sites.

8/10