And scraping the bottom of the Blair Witch / Paranormal Activity barrel I find this film, grinning idiotically up at me, just waiting to consume 90 minutes of my life.
You know, I admit it, I'm a sucker for these kind of horror films. So I probably deserve it when some celluloid creature like this shambles out of the dark and takes a bite out of me. But, seriously, when someone has an idea for a movie - shouldn't they, you know, kind of flesh it out? Think it through a few times? Am I being too demanding here? "Episode 50" follows two teams of "psychic investigators", one secular and one religious, into one of those "most haunted place on Earth" places (of which there are several hundred or so if you watch these kind of TV shows), in this case an old mental hospital. There's lots of back story concerning the team members, which is constantly being introduced until practically the very last frame of the film. There's lots happening, with each team presenting conflicting reasons for the ghostly goings on.
And there's practically no coherent overall idea of the film.
The flimmakers here want to use the "found footage" format AND have their scary background music too. They want to scare us WITHOUT building up tension. They want to slip in a cute little religious message AND have it taken seriously. Heck, the probably want to lose weight by eating ice cream and get rich buying real estate with no money down.
Mix the half-baked, nearly incoherent film style with some egregiously bad acting and out pops a film that makes "Return to Pontianak" look like "Silence of the Lambs." Seriously, the most horrible thing about this film is that I spent time watching it. Don't make that mistake. Save yourselves!
You know, I admit it, I'm a sucker for these kind of horror films. So I probably deserve it when some celluloid creature like this shambles out of the dark and takes a bite out of me. But, seriously, when someone has an idea for a movie - shouldn't they, you know, kind of flesh it out? Think it through a few times? Am I being too demanding here? "Episode 50" follows two teams of "psychic investigators", one secular and one religious, into one of those "most haunted place on Earth" places (of which there are several hundred or so if you watch these kind of TV shows), in this case an old mental hospital. There's lots of back story concerning the team members, which is constantly being introduced until practically the very last frame of the film. There's lots happening, with each team presenting conflicting reasons for the ghostly goings on.
And there's practically no coherent overall idea of the film.
The flimmakers here want to use the "found footage" format AND have their scary background music too. They want to scare us WITHOUT building up tension. They want to slip in a cute little religious message AND have it taken seriously. Heck, the probably want to lose weight by eating ice cream and get rich buying real estate with no money down.
Mix the half-baked, nearly incoherent film style with some egregiously bad acting and out pops a film that makes "Return to Pontianak" look like "Silence of the Lambs." Seriously, the most horrible thing about this film is that I spent time watching it. Don't make that mistake. Save yourselves!