Daylight (I) (2013) User Reviews

Found demonic footage

[kosmasp · 5/10 · 24 November 2013]

I'm still curious why it took so long for this genre to take off. Blair Witch seemed to have opened the door for cheap (even cheaper than usual) horror movie making. Whatever the case, I'm not a big fan of that craze. Still the movie although it has many flaws (acting being one of the major ones, clichés and bad shots some of the others), is somewhat enticing and has tension when needed.

It almost takes really off during the last third of the movie (even if it seems to change pace in between), but it also gets tangled up in some mysterious threads that might not be as obvious as you have thought at the beginning of the movie. So it is complex, but maybe not in a good way (Eye of the Beholder). If it weren't for going that different route, I think I would've given it a lesser rating, but maybe you'll feel different. It's a strange movie, keep that in the back of your mind

Slightly fresher than most

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 13 August 2018]

DAYLIGHT is another entry in the found footage horror scheme of indie film-making, although this one goes in a different direction to most. This is more of a mystery and investigation type film, with plenty of scene changes and a large supporting cast to do justice to the mysterious storyline. The story is about child abuse in a small town, a scarily believable premise, and it plays out in a way which suffers from the usual indie problems but feels fresher than most.

Utter disaster of a c-movie micro-budget video.

[thomasbhunter · 1/10 · 10 December 2014]

"Daylight" is another tedious entry in the micro-budget, c-horror "found footage" sub-genre. I happen to really enjoy these kinds of films and have viewed and reviewed many dozens of them over the last couple of years. This one is, unfortunately pretty typical of majority of these weekend-shoot videos. The acting is what you'd expect from a community college drama course and is often distractingly worse (the kind of acting that makes it seem like they are reading from the script for the first time). This makes it difficult to watch this one all the way through (esp as it just seemed to drone on and on...), but I think to review a film, you need to watch it all the way, just to be fair. Anyway, there were ZERO SCARES (in fact, nothing even remotely interesting in that regard - it was almost like a very long, very bland documentary instead of a horror film), and the plot was the standard dull fare for a supernatural/"demonic" storyline. I think the writers and directors intended some kind of psychological component but couldn't quite decide what kind of film they wanted to make. There's no mystery to the story, no intellectual subtext - it's just a haphazard effort that lacked cohesion and any kind of suspense- building on any level, ultimately. So, unfortunately, I wasted $5 on this rental (which is actually a pretty high price of admission when compared to most other films in this sub-genre on Amazon Instant) - which is a lot to throw away on a rental. Hopefully, this review will save you some money and time, as I definitely can't recommend this one. Really the only positives for this one are the use of quite good editing software (if heavily overused, esp with regard to the usual "found footage" camera flutters and video distortion) and graphics, high quality HD cameras, they did provide at least a full-length movie (though again that was a plus and a minus), the lack of tedious background music (so common to these kinds of films) and some kinda cool DVD cover artwork, which actually sold me on renting this clunker. I just want to save the viewing public from wasting their money, despite the phony reviews posted by family and friends of the filmmakers eager to earn some of their investment back.

An absolute disaster

[abbycatt · 1/10 · 21 December 2014]

What a mess this movie was! I am almost at a loss for words. How do I even describe this movie?? Let's see....a super slow set up, about 10 different plot lines by the end including - paranormal elements, time travel, abused children, emotional trauma, murder, teleportation.. all culminating to a end that was nothing but people screaming, running around the various locations they teleport to, doors slamming, and camera interference, all of which lead to nothing. This movie tried so damn hard to do something different, but we were left with way too many plot developments, none of which get resolved. If this review sounds like a mess, it's simply because I am trying to describe the worst movie I have seen all year. Mind bending amounts of awfulness here. Oh, and the acting was horrible. At one point the camera guy actually whines "Oh man! Not again!!" after being teleported to a different location.

Daylight is a great title

[dtskoblar · 1/10 · 12 December 2014]

It's the only thing that this steaming pile of @#% is scarier than. No acting No direction. No plot. No point. No sense. No believability. No effort. No way to get your wasted time back. Just say NO.As in How about this movie should have never daylight? Daylight plot holes so big you can see.....Daylight through them...What should the people who made this film and willingly subjected it to others never see again???,,,You guessed it Daylight....Out of all the horrible found footage films ever made which is actually the most horrible...Daylight! Why did the chicken cross the road to escape from the crappy film DAYLIGHT..If you want to break up with your gf/bf really recommend Daylight and then watch it with them.They're assuredly going to lose all respect for you.Yay 10 lines.I officially wrote more meaningful dialogue than in the entire film Daylight.

I cant even come up with a summary!

[angelxx-745-69407 · 2/10 · 1 January 2015]

OK, where do I begin! I watch movies every day, every genre from blockbuster to micro budget. I will watch practically anything from start to finish, even if it is awful! This film, DAYLIGHT, left me staring at the screen saying WTF just happened! Very loose plot, too many characters to keep up with, awful camera work (found footage motion sickness job) and a story that just goes to hell. I have no idea what the point of this film was, and Im pretty sure the director took some acid half way through filming because there is no way anyone in there right mind would have taken a movie in the direction this one took! Maybe you have to have some serious chemicals ingested in order to understand this film! Wow, Im still actually shaking my head at what I've just seen!

Just stay away form this celluloid loser

[specialuse117 · 1/10 · 7 February 2015]

It takes an effort to write this review because I wasted enough time with this piece of trash. There is nothing to this film - and I use the word film only because I can think of no other word. Just one good scene could have made it so much better but every minute was just a waste of time. There is no focus to the film, no real plot, no resolution at all - well maybe there was but I did not find anything to resolve. I do enjoy well made "found footage" but this was crap. Please do not waste your time with this. The best punishment for this inadequacy would be for all involve to have to watch this film every day. I can think of nothing worse.

Unusually complex plot gets in the way of enjoyment

[Armin_Nikkhah_Shirazi · 6/10 · 23 July 2023]

DAYLIGHT starts off like many other found footage movies, with a person narrating after-the-fact on several deaths and disappearances that happened around a house; followed by the showing of footage found on location.

However, what starts off as a deceptively simple story about a high school girl for whom a team of three child protective services workers is investigating the possibility of child abuse sprawls out in multiple directions, so that by the time everything is said and done, the plot subsumes stories concerning each of the three members of the CPS team, involving three separate priests and three different girls, their families and one boy, all centered on demonic possession.

Apparently, the original cut was three hours long, and it does not surprise me at all. The released cut, about half as long, compresses all the different plotlines to such an extent that I dare anyone to make sense of the plot on first viewing.

The matter is not helped by the fact that in the second half the pace becomes noticeably more hectic and confusing due to intermixing of different footage and various distortion effects. It is done to such an extent that it makes me wonder whether the film-makers tried to confuse the audience on purpose.

Since this mitigated my enjoyment of the movie, I was getting ready to give the film a low rating, despite the decent production values and acting.

But then, during the last 15 minutes, the movie suddenly went into an unexpected high-paced quasi-surrealistic tour de force, which led me to revise my view positively.

The final 15-minute sequence does not really clear up matters and may even introduce new confusions, but when it is just taken in as a sort of rapid-fire "stream of consciousness" procession of events without worrying too much about what it all means, it actually becomes quite enjoyable. At any rate, it is not like the audience was not already told at the beginning what will happen to all these people.

So this is a found footage movie that I think can be quite polarizing. I ended up kind of liking it overall, but I can understand the view of those who hate it with a passion.

Hot garbage

[baldinicg · 1/10 · 27 January 2021]

This was possibly the worst movie I've ever seen, regardless of genre. Constant quick cuts, grainy video, multiple characters speaking simultaneously to make the dialogue indecipherable in order to hide the fact that the plot is completely inane. The running time was 1 hour 37 minutes but it felt like it was 6 hours of torture. The only positive thing that I can say is at least it was free on Amazon Prime.

Fascinating film, BUT . . . . definitely not for everybody

[JayRief · 8/10 · 6 March 2019]

Daylight seems to be, at first glance, a run-of-the-mill found footage film, rife with lots of running around (both at night AND during the day, because why not?), shaky hand-held camera work with gratuitous glitching from the editing room, several characters who insist on running said camera for every conceivable moment of their day (which they try and justify, but I mean, come on), and performances from actors which aren't terrible, per se, but which certainly won't win any Academy Awards.

But while accomplishing all of that, Daylight achieves something very, very different, and something that probably doesn't jive with a lot of self-proclaimed "horror buffs." The problem here is that I don't feel like Daylight, at its core, is really a horror film. There are no crap-your-pants scares, no ghastly exorcisms or CG ghouls flying around, and no over-the-top gore to appease those with bloodlust. Instead, Daylight is a slow-burn thriller spiced with the ingredients of a standard horror but couched in a formula that borders on art house, and the result is nothing short of intriguing.

The entire first half of the film, in fact, is nothing more than a crime investigation, which takes a couple of viewings just to sort out who's who and exactly why and how they all seem to know each other. But it's certainly not boring. Act 2 definitely tests one's patience and attention skills, as the chronological timeline goes haywire, and the story takes off in a different direction, which begins to amp up as the characters (and the narrative) start to get a little crazy. If nothing else, the film is worth sticking around for the last ten minutes, where the directors (there are 3 of them?) seem to have thrown the rules of filmmaking out the window and conceived of something that really cannot be explained, but is totally unexpected and amazingly insane and was a huge part of why I went back to watch the whole movie over again. And then again. And probably will again.

So would I suggest this movie to everybody I know? Probably not. At least not to anyone looking for cheap scares and mindless entertainment. There are plenty of other places to find that. But if you're looking for a dark, haunting, cerebral sort of experience, then you should definitely check this one out.

Not a bad watch at all

[cmg-56101 · 7/10 · 12 March 2021]

First, being from Indiana I was very surprised to find out we had a town called Daylight. I just stumbled across this movie on Tubi and I actually enjoyed it. However, there are two main issues that I just cannot get past because they began to drive me insane.

First - more than halfway through the movie, the camera began moving a lot more. A LOT more. I began to feel some motion sickness coming on. It was either being dropped, shook, the picture screwing up as they tend to do in paranormal movies, underwater, etc. If you can do it to a camera, it was done. Found footage movies sometimes have this issue and while I understand how they are being made, it also doesn't take away from the movie if we can get through it without feeling like we'd rather fast forward through those parts so we don't need to take a motion sickness pill.

Second - more towards the end, the storyline starts blending together because, hey, that is what possessed people do to screw with the non-possessed: dig up dirt to fling. But this is something else I feel we can do without in any movie. In a very rapid succession we go from the little girl's birthday to the mom who drowned to the guy meeting with the priest in the woods back to the little girl then back to the drowned mom. This bouncing began to make what was going on very confusing to me. When movies do this, I tend to switch them off until I can sort out the confusion in my head but this began so close to the end I didn't bother. This is something that we thankfully don't see very often in found footage movies, which is a blessing considering we have the above mentioned issue in so many.

With those issues said, I still liked the movie. Again, I was shocked to find out we actually have a place called Daylight after spending the better part of my 40 years living in Indiana. While I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to hung this movie down, if you are on Tubi or any streaming service that has it, give it a shot and see if you can get into it. It isn't boring, so there is that. And it also shows there really is more than corn in Indiana :)

At the bottom of my barrel

[schumacr1 · 1/10 · 27 March 2022]

I keep a personal movie inventory where I rank movies and categorize them in good, average, and bad buckets. Daylight has the honor of being at the very bottom of my bad category (and I like found footage films), even behind a flick called "Primal Rage" that makes Bigfoot an archer(!) That's saying something.

Doesn't even deserve one star!

[ann-42003 · 1/10 · 11 October 2023]

Absolutely one of the worst films I've ever seen!! God only knows what was supposed to be going on? The most frightening thing about the film was the acting, some people need to realise they should be doing other things for a living!! These people need to leave screenplay and acting etc to the professionals!!

The camera work was so so bad! I know you're supposed to get that it's amateurs filming, but you can get that across without it being so poor and jumping all over the place, it was enough to trigger a migraine. The sound was also extremely low interspersed with them all screaming and shouting inaudibly!

That's an hour or so I'll never get back!! 🤦.

Above average story

[sam21462 · 6/10 · 11 December 2014]

I admit, with some hesitation, to having become a bit of a fan of the low budget found footage/hand held horror genre. I tend to be quite forgiving as I understand that these are mostly done by those who are still learning their craft combined with a few who have a true passion for the project.

While the acting was somewhat hit or miss I did admire the ambition of the story. There was a level of complexity and interwoven character histories that is unusual for this type of film. It stylistically made its way from a somewhat predictable beginning to an almost Clive Barker like place then through a very dark surreal phase and finally settled in to what I can only call a Gothic (did I mention I found it ambitious?).

This would not be for anyone who simply wants to have a good scare or a fan of slasher flicks. I can not even truly say it is for exorcism junkies as it was not what one would typically thinks of as that type of film. It was an almost experimental feeling magic carpet ride. For me, at least, it was an interesting ride.

Love It or Hate It (I Loved It)

[theflashpan · 10/10 · 6 March 2019]

A masterpiece of the found footage genre. Either you get what the filmmakers were going for, or you don't. This movie is not for everyone, but for a person like me who loves a movie that scares you, thrills you, and makes you think, this was the perfect watch. Rewards rewatches because there are so many subtle clues dropped along the way.

Suspense/Horror Flick Keeps You Wondering

[shazam63 · 10/10 · 8 December 2013]

I love indie flicks because you just never know what you're going to get - hopefully it's either really good or it's so bad it's at least entertaining. This is a suspense/horror flick with a religious veneer to it. First, the bad - there's some amateur acting in here and I would like to have seen the tension start to accelerate a little sooner than it did. As far as the good goes it's a great story with a really cool ending to it. The special effects are way above average for a low-budget film like this. The atmosphere and wavelength of the film remind be a lot of a film from the early 80's called "The Entity" so if you like that kind of film you'll definitely dig this one. I saw this in a theater and I will definitely rent it again when it comes out on DVD or VOD, it will easily entertain me again, if I could give half stars I would give it an 8.5. It's a strange movie but strange in a good way!

Fact or Fiction? I hope it didn't really happen!

[kimja65 · 9/10 · 14 December 2013]

Great Indie Flick! Shocking ending and really cool special affects. Cool story, is it based on true events? I can't wait to see it again. It is a much better production than some suspense horror flicks I have seen from the big picture houses. It might offend some strongly religious Christians so be forewarned. The little girl Sidney did a great job acting in this and so did the Priest. I saw this in a theater in Evansville where I think it was made. I definitely will download if or rent it to watch again when it comes out on DVD or VOD. It's not a slasher film at all. If you liked the Excorcist and the Omen series you will enjoy this as it is an actual story.

The Exorcist Meets Inception

[outskirtsfilmfest · 9/10 · 6 March 2019]

Yep, you read that right ^

It's a demon possession movie that goes full-on insane toward the last half hour, with characters teleporting through their various versions of Hell. It's nuts, it's bonkers, I loved it.

Confusing yet innovative

[chloejehowell · 8/10 · 15 January 2021]

This film while confusing, for low budget delivers more than most of the films I've seen. However it might be one to see more than once to connect unseen dots. Was consistently interested in where the story was heading, each time it changed direction I wanted to understand and know more. A unique film.. I was impressed.