Home Video (2016) User Reviews

The only Purging I'll be doing is Purging this DVD I bought!

[vengeance20 · 2/10 · 30 October 2016]

Bought this film from an Asda Supermarket & took it with a pinch of salt as to it being good or a good watch, but the cover art looked good so I bought it anyway for a cheap price.

So when I finally did get round to watching this film a few weeks later while I was away on holiday to Alton Towers. I watched this film to see what it was like. I can tell you now it was the biggest pile of sh!te I've ever seen, if not one of them as it was boring & had only a few bits of action here & there but very little.

About 3/4 of the film is just the family getting ready for a barbecue, chatting, arguing, pi$$ing around, more chatting, setting the table, shaky cam work & other pointless sh!te which for me honestly made me forget what film I was watching as I got lost after 30-40 minutes in.

Then when some action DOES happen it's like The Blair Witch Project almost, if not a little better. But that doesn't make up for the 3/4 waste of time footage I just saw which had nothing to do with the film. If anything it's quite disappointing, lazy & incredibly sloppy to go for the "invisible being" BS. It's like other horrors not having back story & the Directors/Writers

Furthermore, the medical parts laced in between & the interviews didn't help, but again, this film focused way too much on story. I was surprised to find this to be a 77 minute film. 77 minutes? You've got to be joking right? Because even for a film THAT short you'd think there'd be more action sh!te going on & less story which even then makes you wonder why the need to drag the story out so much if the film was that short!

The film felt watery & made little sense. I simply don't see how they could have a film so short, yet babble on for 3/4 of the 77 minute run time so long that you forget it's a horror film & more like a damn home film & still make it like any other boring film with a longer run time (i.e. 94 minutes) with little to no action. How can they look at this & say it's good? Come on!

I overall found this to be a colossal waste of time film. It was boring, dragged on & had little to no action near the end!

2/10

What is with the wall with all the skidmarks?

[selfdestructo · 3/10 · 23 January 2022]

Low budget filmmaking or not, surely you can find a better place to conduct your interviews.

The Diaz family moves from the city to a small mountain village. The story: They all disappear. Some VHS footage mysteriously turns up, and interviews with locals are added to form a faux-documentary. Town officials deny everything sinister going on there.

The problem with The Purging Hour (and it's a big one), is that the film never establishes the threat. Sure, conflicting theories are bandied about. Literally, the family experiences banging noises, rustling, and crashing inside the house, and they all freak. At one point, the father goes outside, and sees the silhouette of a man in the fog. One of the kids goes into the garage to retrieve medicine, and gets his throat cut. Someone/thing tampers with their car so they can't escape. The final seconds of footage they show (that had to be "enhanced"), suggest a (dead) woman from an urban legend is responsible. Jeez, pick a theme.

I am a big fan of found footage and faux-documentaries (when done effectively and believably). Also, foxy Latinas! While I'd consider this story a failure, the movie did have elements that intrigued me. So, 3 stars it is.

Heinz 57

[vegicat · 5/10 · 9 September 2016]

This poor movie just couldn't figure out what it wanted to be when it grew up. If it had a motto, it would have been, "Why not both?"... before the writer/director, or whoever was in charge chucked it and said, "Why not all?"

Is it a choppy, hand-held movie camera Blair Witch thing? Check. Family drama? Check. Psychological thriller? Check. Slasher film? Check. Supernatural thriller? Check. Documentary? Check.

A whole lot of checks, and not a lot of balance. They did throw in some humor for good measure, but probably only because the kitchen sink couldn't fit.

That said, it's a pity. The acting is actually very good, very natural, and believable. The interaction between the family members wasn't contrived, and didn't even seem scripted, really. Like someone just filmed a normal family moving into their new home and setting up for their first dinner. Well, if normal people insisted on filming the entire thing constantly, handing the camera off over and over between family members.

That's one of the biggest flaws of the film -- that the entire thing is made to look like it was filmed with a video camera or smartphone. And, the family members carry the video camera around with them, filming every little detail, which didn't make much sense. For example, toward the end of the movie multiple family members have crisis situations (it is a horror story, eh?), which they happen to film, but when another family member stumbles upon them, they just pick the camera up and keep filming. It's understandable that they wanted to avoid the worn-out excuse of "somebody has to film for their school project", but without that it just makes no sense. Nobody is going to pick up a camera and keep documenting while their family member is in trouble. The only time the camera stayed still was during the "documentary" sections.

Speaking of which, the documentary sections were also well-acted, but didn't add anything to the story. Nothing those interviewed say reveals anything pertinent about the people moving into the house, or even help the audience form an idea of what has occurred.

That, being the biggest flaw of the movie -- there isn't a story. The movie doesn't tell you what happens, or even what might have happened. It doesn't even seem like anything happened, because although everything has been documented on video up to that point, once the minimal horror/thriller part of the movie begins, nothing is really documented. There isn't even a cohesive story line as to what happened. In the what, why, who, how, when, line of storytelling, all the movie answers is the who (might have gotten killed, but not who might have killed them) and when (after dinner).

Altogether disappointing. I really wish the producers/directors had chosen to film the movie normally, with perhaps little clips of the video camera interspersed. Oh, and it would have been nice if there was a plot and story line.

There's barely any violence or gore in the movie -- about a thousandth less than you'd see in a typical video game. There's only blood in two scenes, for a few seconds. There's also no real romantic backstory, and other than the bare, muscular arms of the dad, there is nary an inch of skin to be seen. So, if you were thinking that perhaps there'd be some sexy time to hold your interest, nope, none of that. It wouldn't have helped.

It's as if all the scenes that were supposed to have been filmed with the video camera were done first and they realized that nothing had happened. So they tossed in a few minutes of scare factor at the end to imply something happened, and then filmed some "documentary- style interviews" to splice in and provide possible motivations for the event/happening/crime that's never explained or even verified as having happened.

If you'd like to see some very natural-looking, well-acted and natural scenes with a family dynamic, you'll like parts of this film. If you like scary horror, psychological thriller, or suspense movies, you might want to pass this one up.

EDIT

I kind of feel bad about my rating, now that I know it had such a small budget. But, really... is it that much cheaper to have actors hold a camera? Couldn't they have put it on a counter once in a while? Or bought a $100 used tripod?

Strangely paced.

[parry_na · 5/10 · 25 August 2018]

This is a fairly enjoyable film. However, it is very strangely paced.

A family move into a house in an idyllic, if isolated, location. Overbearing dad Bruce (Steve Jacques), fractious mum Jennifer (Cara O'Brien), gobby teenage daughter Kacie (Alana Chester - and boyfriend Mark (Tomas Decurgez)) and sensitive younger son Manny (David Mendoza). They film themselves during their first few days in their new home, and this 'found footage' is interspersed with interviews with friends and authority figures telling what is essentially the same story. The doom-laden tone of their discourse jars with the scenes of family squabbles and normality. Worse, this style of presentation goes on for far, far too long without incident.

There are murmurs and whispers about the neighbouring un-named Californian town having some kind of murderous mystery, but this is rarely expanded upon. What we do find out is that the entire family disappear overnight - we are told this fairly early on (in fact, news of their disappearance is the first thing we see, presented as anecdotal information on screen). Now all 'The Purging Hour' has to do is go through the motions of killing everyone and providing some kind of explanation.

To this end, the final fifteen minutes of the film's 77 minute running-time is suddenly a mass of breaking-up images ('this battery is dying,' providing the reason for that), screams, a bit of blood and death. Sadly, no real explanation, motive or reason is given.

Open-ended films have to be handled carefully, or the lack of closure is frustrating. Here, it is doubly so as we have invested so much time watching the family go about their business of arguing, laughing, unpacking, eating etc, the lack of cohesion in the subsequent pay-off we have waited too long for is annoying. Even with these things in mind, I quite enjoyed 'The Purging Hour' - the acting is good throughout and writer/director Emmanuel Giorgio Sandoval's style is confident, if uneven.

Anything more than a 1/10 is lying

[darkwater129 · 1/10 · 13 September 2016]

An hour into this movie and I still don't feel like it's progressed. Just a crappy video camera filming a family on their first day moving into a new house. Splice in some very strange mockumentary-esque interviews that pretty much say the same thing over and over. They keep say watch the video, what they mean to say is watch the end of the video. I watched this family grill burgers, walk around the house, bitch at one another, and take a walk outside. Waste of time, do not watch. Apparently I need to write ten lines so IMDb will post this. So I will continue to write just so no one unwittingly watches this turd. This is my first IMDb review and I had to write it because this movie was so bad. Also, if I knew someone had filmed my SO and I smoking weed outside, I would check said camera, erase the footage, and most likely turn off the camera/stop filming. Not walk with it filming the whole time, turn it over to my dad, (who's house I'm still living in because I'm 18), and then start an argument. If my daughter were anything like the daughter in this movie, she'd be getting her ass kicked on a daily basis just for the way she speaks to me. I'm not her dad and I wanted to beat her ass, ground her, and do anything within my power to raise a better child. This mom/dad duo suck as parents, as spouses, and as normal human beings. Hopefully I'm at ten lines now. Also, why do they not lock any doors? The dad even tells them to lock the doors, and they suspect someone has broken into their house, but, hey, maybe they won't know how to turn a doorknob. Too many issues with this turd of a movie. DO NOT WATCH

Not worth $1

[mgtwgtkgt · 1/10 · 5 October 2020]

I love stocking up on horror movies at my local Dollar Tree throughout the year, then spending October watching as many of them as possible. From the 1st-4th I have watched nine DVD's. Two were okay and six were pretty bad, but nothing came close to the ridiculously horrible The Purging Hour. As other reviewers have mentioned, the first hour is a big bunch of nothing. Found footage of a family moving into a new house and arguing with each other does not make a good scary movie. Even when the action picks up a little in the last few minutes it isn't enough to save this disaster.

She wouldn't do this

[nogodnomasters · 1/10 · 9 October 2017]

This is a bad found footage tape made worse with boring interviews. A family moves to a foggy ski resort town with a reputation. They film horribly and very boring stuff. The lousy footage is interrupted with all kinds of unconvincing interviews letting us know the family disappears or all dies before the event happens. Nothing worth while to see until about an hour into the film, then it was all jerky camera. Most of the time you had to ask, why are they filming this? One of the worst found footage tapes out there. It is shameful that this nonsense passes for entertainment.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

The Puking Hour

[tmccull52 · 1/10 · 4 August 2020]

This is one of the worst "found footage" horror movies that I've ever seen. Whomever is responsible for producing and distributing this utter piece of crap should be galactically embarrassed about it.

The poster for the movie warns, "Don't let them in!". Let whom in? Serial killer squirrels? Rapacious, rampaging raccoons? Cold-blooded killer chipmunks? Bullwinkle J. Moose having a psychotic break with reality? You never see who the film's supposedly murderous antagonist is.

Is it a vengeful ghost? Eehhh, could be.

Is it a foul demonic entity? Hmm, maybe?

Is it a sinister human psychopath? Uhmmm, possibly.

The only death that can be definitely be traced to a known commodity is when the daughter's cretin of a boyfriend spazzes out and accidentally stabs her father to death.

The boyfriend is then killed while trying to retrieve medicine for his girlfriend's little brother. Someone or something slashes his throat, but you never see who kills him. The daughter goes looking for her boyfriend, finds his body and freaks out. But she does retain enough presence of mind to grab the bottle of pills and race back to her mother and little brother.

But wait! What's this?! Little brother's pills are mysteriously missing?! What fiendish force is responsible?!

There are hints that the killer is human. Before he's killed by his daughter's boyfriend, the father sees a shadowy figure in the fog, and someone seems to have tampered with the family car so that it won't start. Someone had to steal the missing pills from little brother's medicine bottle. Someone bangs on the door and then opens it, ostensibly to kill the mother.

After the mother is killed or taken or whatever, there is a disclaimer that states that the upcoming footage was digitally remastered to reveal critical evidence. What does this remastered footage show? A pair of bare feet and lower legs belonging to a female as she is being dragged to the woods. My guess would be that the feet and legs belong to the mother. There is no polish on the figure's toenails, and the daughter had dark toenail polish on in a scene shortly before the mother is killed. Someone also had to undress the mother, as she was fully dressed when last we see her in the movie. She had pants, shoes, and socks on, and the person being dragged into the woods is bare-legged and barefooted.

Interviews at the beginning of the movie suggest that there were problems with the family. Little brother has conversations with imaginary friends... but we never see any evidence of this in the movie, nor does his "condition" seem to have anything to do with the killing. It is intimated that the mother really isn't in love with the father any more, and that she has a strained relationship with their daughter. Again, this doesn't appear to have any connection to whatever fate eventually befalls the family. In the end, the only thing that we're certain of is that the cretin boyfriend accidentally stabs the father to death. We never even get the barest glimpse at whomever is responsible for the rest of the deaths/disappearances.

This film is a farce. It's an utter turd of a movie. Do yourself a favor and pass on it. If negative number reviews were available, I'd have given this one a negative 7, at the very least.

Inspiring

[cristianigarcia · 10/10 · 19 August 2020]

This movie inspired me to pursue my career in filmmaking

Take it for what it is

[carlosjfernandez · 7/10 · 7 August 2018]

I mean like, it was shot in ONE DAY.. with pretty much NO MONEY.. and NO SCRIPT... and you can stream it on Amazon prime and it's in stores lol. Like WUT? If people liked blair witch idk why you wouldn't like this.