A family hold a birthday party for their son at their new house, and he uses the present of a camera to document the ensuing strange events. are they tied to a local legend?
This has caught a lot of flack on IMDb, but I reckon it deserves a higher rating than 3.6. The pool party scene has annoyed some, but I thought it was fine, although the shaky cam was too much - if girls helicoptering their bikini tops is not for you, then stay away. If shaky cam grinds your gears, stick it out because it gradually settles down, and the last half hour (apart from the final scene) is on static surveillance cams.
The problem is they threw the kitchen sink at it, so it's full of action and sound effects and lots of characters, instead of the eerie build up of little things exploding in a terrifying climax that we're used to from the early Paranormal Activity movies. And packing in so much action means the implausibility of people not running for their lives comes way before the audience feels escape is futile. Also there's deep sloppiness in the story's internal time line.
There are a couple of scenes inserted to show off grandstanding effects (second forest death and exorcism), which carries on from the desire to capture the male teen audience in the pool party scene. Cut them out and you probably have an acceptable run time of 85 mins. Also, a useful scene is ruined by the hokey trick of tying strings to the four corners of a sheet to make it elevate.
Couple of good jump scares, but some of the stuff to camera is too literal for this genre - suggestion is much more effective while building to the climax. And the ghostly whispering took me back to '70s haunted house productions.
The acting is fine, apart from the sister. Too many characters early on, although they do get thinned out. And the discipline of the first person POV is lost in the final scene.
Overall - tries too hard, takes on too much, misunderstands its audience. It may be a case of the technical guys setting up the visuals before really thinking about their story. Seen a couple of those recently.
This has caught a lot of flack on IMDb, but I reckon it deserves a higher rating than 3.6. The pool party scene has annoyed some, but I thought it was fine, although the shaky cam was too much - if girls helicoptering their bikini tops is not for you, then stay away. If shaky cam grinds your gears, stick it out because it gradually settles down, and the last half hour (apart from the final scene) is on static surveillance cams.
The problem is they threw the kitchen sink at it, so it's full of action and sound effects and lots of characters, instead of the eerie build up of little things exploding in a terrifying climax that we're used to from the early Paranormal Activity movies. And packing in so much action means the implausibility of people not running for their lives comes way before the audience feels escape is futile. Also there's deep sloppiness in the story's internal time line.
There are a couple of scenes inserted to show off grandstanding effects (second forest death and exorcism), which carries on from the desire to capture the male teen audience in the pool party scene. Cut them out and you probably have an acceptable run time of 85 mins. Also, a useful scene is ruined by the hokey trick of tying strings to the four corners of a sheet to make it elevate.
Couple of good jump scares, but some of the stuff to camera is too literal for this genre - suggestion is much more effective while building to the climax. And the ghostly whispering took me back to '70s haunted house productions.
The acting is fine, apart from the sister. Too many characters early on, although they do get thinned out. And the discipline of the first person POV is lost in the final scene.
Overall - tries too hard, takes on too much, misunderstands its audience. It may be a case of the technical guys setting up the visuals before really thinking about their story. Seen a couple of those recently.