Bonus Review: The Den (2013)

Another horror movie based around the dangers of interacting with anonymous strangers online, The Den often feels comparable to the majorly flawed Megan Is Missing, but it does just enough to be a better movie. Essentially, this is a film more intent on creating thrills and scares than anything too believable. Taken in that way, it works well enough.

Melanie Papalia plays Elizabeth Benton, a young woman who is doing a study on the various habits of people who use webcams. This means that she spends a lot of her time on a website called "The Den" (which is chatroulette in all but name, from what I can gather). Unfortunately, this leads to her computer being hacked as she's targeted by someone with a sinister, and deadly, agenda.

Directed by Zachary Donohue, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Lauren Thompson, The Den is twisted, sometimes-tense, entertainment. And there are numerous moments that definitely remind you of why you (me, everybody, everybody) should be cautious about who we talk to online, and how relatively unguarded we can leave our computers. How many of you have a laptop that stays on 24/7 nowadays, with the exception of restarts needed to install updates? And how many of those laptops have a webcam, a small portal into your world, for the wrong person with the right skills?

Papalia (who has a solid, if unspectacular, filmography to her credit) does a decent job in the main role, mostly reacting to what she sees online. It's not the most complex performance, that's not what's needed here, but she's believable enough, even as she starts to piece everything together and become afraid for her safety. David Schlachtenhaufen, Adam Shapiro, Anna Margaret Hollyman, and Saidah Arrika Ekulona are all fine as the various "real" people that Papalia talks to both online and off. Matt Riedy is the police sergeant who tries to help, despite having very little to go on. It's also worth mentioning the fleeting, but memorable, cameo from Bill Oberst Jr. Fans will enjoy seeing him appear onscreen in a moment that's both creepy and hilarious at the same time.

Where The Den falls down is where so many of these movies fall down. It is, in case the previous paragraphs didn't make it clear, basically a "found footage" kinda movie. And there are many times when it all makes sense, especially when everything is shown through the main webcam. But it just doesn't feel right when people constantly make videocalls, for example, instead of just using audio.

The other main problem that the film has is the way everything falls apart in the second half. As the horror element becomes stronger, any sense of believability is soon thrown out the window. Believability doesn't ever have to be the main priority in a horror movie, of course, but it's never good when things occur that start to make viewers question how things are playing out.

Worth a watch, and plenty of people have enjoyed it more than I did, but it's also unsurprising, highly derivative, and lacking in logic.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Den-Melanie-Papalia/dp/B00JK7QUD0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416658447&sr=8-1&keywords=the+den+dvd

Hybrid (2010)

Killer cars. They've appeared in movies before and they're often a lot of fun. Sometimes they're driven by a killer driver and sometimes they're just evil machines that can drive themselves around. Personally, I think that Christine remains at the top of the pile in this particular subgenre so that's the movie that newcomers have to get close to. I won't beat around the bush here, Hybrid doesn't come close enough. It's not terrible but it stays just below average throughout.

The basic premise is a good one - a killer car. Only this isn't actually a car. It's something else, something that can imitate numerous vehicles in a way that helps it to catch food. And when I say food I mean people. After a bit of a smash up the car ends up in a garage and it's not long until those working in the garage start to realise that something is up. Unfortunately, by the time the full extent of the danger that they're in hits them it's too late for them to leave. They are, in fact, trapped.

Well, when I say that they're trapped I actually mean that the audience is supposed to believe that they're trapped. Being in a big, multi-level garage doesn't exactly help to make the movie claustrophobic and tense. It's not even an underground garage like the one in the enjoyable P2. And then there's the fact that the reason everyone is trapped inside is because the boss man (Oded Fehr) is a big asshole, the kind of guy who gets his emergency exits welded shut to stop break-ins.

Fairly capably directed by Eric Valette, Hybrid suffers most of all from a pretty weak script by Benjamin Carr being handled by a fairly weak cast. Not everyone is bad, mind you, but Fehr is stuck with such a bad character that it's impossible to warm to him (which is fine and dandy sometimes but just doesn't work for this movie) and Ryan Kennedy is sadly underused. The lead actress, Shannon Beckner playing Tilda, just isn't very good. I'm sorry to say it, she may be a lovely person in real life, but she simply doesn't cut it in this role. She puts up with too much crap from others, making her hard to like, and then when she finally becomes assertive and develops into the potential heroine of the piece . . . . . . . . . it's not only unbelievable but it's also a case of too little too late.

There are some good ideas here though. That enjoyable premise is fun and the fact that the car isn't really a car allows for some successful "car sneaking up on someone" scenes that usually irritate me so much (yep, despite my ability to suspend disbelief for most things I have some pet peeves and "the superquiet vehicle that nobody notices until it screeches and/or makes an impact" is one of them). It's a shame that there wasn't much else in the movie to make it worthwhile, one or two decent moments aside. Even the CGI disappoints when it is needed most.

With a bit of tweaking here and there and some more money available, this could have been a very enjoyable film. As it stands, it's stuck just below average but the director is someone to keep an eye on (as fans of his 2002 film, Malefique, already knew).

4/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hybrid-3D-Blu-ray/dp/B004L5UINE/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1348212770&sr=1-2