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jasonweiers
Reviews
Late Night with the Devil (2023)
Inconsistent Premise; Good Acting; Disappointing Climax
To start, my very first reaction when I started the movie was to laugh at the 9 (!!) production company openers at the beginning of the film, as it was exactly like a cutaway from Family Guy where the beginning of a movie is just never ending production company spots.
First the positives: the acting was great; the overall story was great, and the overall unique idea of the movie was good. My negative thoughts are solely with the way the movie was shot.
The movie is presented to us as a mockumentary/found footage movie, with the beginning narration mockumentary style to give us exposition, followed by the "found footage" being the taping of the broadcast (as well as behind the scenes footage during commercial breaks).
Shudder, who made the movie, includes the film in their found footage category. Except...the movie keeps forgetting that it made the premise found footage.
First, the "behind the scenes" footage during the commercial breaks is shot like there are cameramen following the characters around backstage (but never mentions why). I can get past the "why" part, except none of the characters even acknowledge that there's apparently a camera in their face, even when they're whispering a very private conversation (wouldn't they shoo the camera away??).
That I can get past. However, at the climax of the film, the found footage premise is completely abandoned and it is shot as a normal movie. So we are suddenly supposed to forget the narrator at the beginning of the movie telling us that this was the footage from the broadcast.
The climax was extremely disappointing. The CGI (or AI or whatever) effects just made it look like a low budget 1980's B-movie, and I laughed (any fear or anticipation that had built up throughout the movie was completely eliminated). And then the switch away from the broadcast footage eliminated all creepy vibes that the realism of a found footage film created. That being said, I still liked where story went, just not the filmmaking.
I don't know if "sometimes it's found footage, sometimes it's not" was a choice by the filmmakers to be artistic, or if they just couldn't come up with a way to keep it consistent and figured it didn't matter. Either way, extremely disappointing. While overall I still liked the movie, I agree that it was absolutely overhyped and the higher rating is more a product of good marketing and people liking it just because it's unique.
XIII (2019)
Simple film with a nice creepy atmosphere
This is a very bare-bones simple film that was directed, filmed, edited, etc by the film's 2 actors. This simplicity is what makes the creepiness of it so effective in my opinion.
The plot is two students are assigned to do a video project based on a book. They find a mysterious book with creepy drawings in the library, which leads them to an abandoned building in the woods.
A huge plus here is that there are only 2 characters. So many found footage movies try to have 5-7 characters going out in the woods, making it impossible to even learn who is who (as filming themselves makes this more difficult than in a traditional film). Having only 2 characters kept things simple and allowed them to get right to the point.
The movie is short, at just 46 minutes. Many other found footage movies could benefit from this. There was no unnecessary filler, no ridiculous side-plot conflicts, etc.
The creepy atmosphere of the film is effective and keeps suspense high as you're not sure what will happen. You're also able to sustain the feeling of dread and suspense because, as I said, there's no extra filler or side plots (for example, if other found footage filmmakers had made this with their typical filler-side-plot-conflicts, there probably would have been an extra 20 minutes of one character finding out the other slept with his girlfriend and then a bunch of unnecessary arguing). Without that, you are able to remain tense throughout the film.
The negative reviews on here are the typical cliche "but you don't even see anything! Nothing happens!" whining that applies to pretty much all found footage movies. Really not sure why these people continually watch found footage and then complain about found footage.
There's no dumb CGI ghosts or monsters. There's no delving into the details of what happened or backstory of the antagonist; it's left as a mystery and up to your imagination, and THAT's what makes it a good creepy film.
Bravo to the two fellas that made this.
Last Radio Call (2022)
Great opening, the rest is mixed.
The opening of the film was pretty good...straight to the point and sufficiently creepy. I could have watched a full length movie of just that; no hour-long boring character introductions like most found footage, just straight to the point and go from there.
But of course that's not what happened as the film then switched to mockumentary style. Overall, I had mixed feelings about the movie.
Pros:
Again, the opening was great. I was ready to give it 8 stars in that first 5 minutes.
It had its moments of suspense and creepiness, though fewer than I had hoped for.
Decent jump scares that kept them limited and did not over rely on them.
The idea of police body cam footage was fairly unique for the genre.
At 1 hour 15 minutes, it was a good length. It did not use a ton of boring unnecessary filler just to make it almost 2 hours like so many other found footage films do.
Cons:
THE ACTING. While I concede that acting is never great in found footage movies, the acting here was a whole new level of bad. I wasn't expecting any Oscar performances, but even if the acting had been on par with other found footage films, I could honestly see myself giving this movie a solid 7, possible more. The acting was by far the biggest con.
The design of the "entity"/antagonist was a bit disappointing. However I actually contemplated putting this in the pros column because I like that they didn't show too much.
Overall a decent watch. I debated between 5 and 6 stars so I give it 5.5 stars.
13 Sherwood Avenue (2023)
Good idea, poor execution
The idea was certainly interesting. A typical found footage haunted house movie like Paranormal Activity, but updated (and made very clear it's 2023 with awkwardly expositional social commentary) with technology including a home AI system (similar to Alexa/Siri).
While the movie is only 1 hour 12 minutes, it seriously felt like 3 hours. I think the goal was a slow-burn effect that many found footage films utilize, but it was more of a no-burn. It essentially repeated the same things over and over and over. And the "entity's" loud heavy breathing was a bit obnoxious and eliminated any creepy factor that could have been gained.
Lastly, the main character was extremely unlikeable, and I couldn't tell if that was intentional or not. Usually when a main character is very unlikeable you can see it's intentional for the plot of the movie (I think Deadstream is a good example of this) but here I wasn't sure if it was intentional or if it was just poor writing. (Or it could just be my own taste and dislike of people who obnoxiously overuse technology to do even the simplest of tasks, which this character does.)
I would have given most of my criticism less weight (and thus the movie a higher rating) if the movie hadn't felt like it was dragging forever.
Deadstream (2022)
Grave Encounters meets Evil Dead
This movie was surprisingly entertaining. I did have somewhat high expectations as I found another Shudder original, "Host", to be an excellent scary movie. What makes it surprising is the movie went an entirely different direction than what would be expected.
The plot follows an internet personality who goes to a supposedly haunted house alone to live stream an overnight stay. I was expecting to mostly just see some spooky shadows and movements and some ghosts, a la "Hell House LLC" (also an excellent movie). And the first half of the movie did take this route.
As other reviewers have mentioned, the main character is...quite annoying. But that's the point, and that's what made me think of "Grave Encounters". Just as that film's characters were purposely unlikeable to mimic the bad personalities in certain "ghost hunter" shows, this character also mimics the cringe of many internet personalities. And that I found enjoyable.
The second half of the film took a sudden turn, when we began dealing with ghosts that were actually tangible beings. The added silliness of it really reminded me of "Evil Dead" (the original 1981 version). It was unexpected and definitely changed the tone of the film (and I sincerely wonder if the reviewers saying the plot was "predictable" actually watched the movie). I would say the first half was more scares/anticipation (a la Hell House LLC, Grave Encounters) and the second half more gore and silliness.
There were some parts that seemed a bit too drawn out and lost my attention a bit. I was surprised when I finished the movie that it was only an hour and a half long because, well, it did feel longer, which is why I gave it a slightly lower rating.
Overall, I recommend. 7.5.
Exists (2014)
Should not have been 'found-footage'
I'm a big fan of found-footage horror films, and though I do still find many of them disappointing, this is the first one I outright thought "this should not even be a found-footage movie".
The lengths the characters went to get evens on camera just got ridiculous, and while every found-footage film eventually has those "why are they still filming?!!" scenes, this movie took that to an entirely new extreme.
For example, a scene where they character is in a hurry to bike to a place with cell phone reception, they first spend an hour rigging his bike to have a GoPro filming behind him because...why not (so the audience can see him being chased of course). And while he was being chased, a big foot was running along side him, which we would get glimpses of when he "looked" over, but the footage was clearly not from the GoPro on his head.
Another scene had a character dying, and she was looking up at her friend, the look in her eyes clearly pleading for help, and he just sat there and zoomed the camera in on her. Way too many scenes in this movie of a character standing around filming instead of helping. One scene has him aiming a shot gun and STILL holding a camera with his hands.
Lastly, despite being a found-footage film, it was overly edited like a regular film. It was just not at all clear why this needed to be a found-footage film (there are other found-footage Bigfoot movies that do it much better). That being said, the story and actors in general were okay. If this had been a regular steady cam movie, I likely would have rated it around a 6.