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thehorrornerdgal
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Late Night with the Devil (2023)
We need more movies like this
I'm a huge fan of found footage movies and if you're telling me that there's one with a possession subject then you should just stop talking and take my money right away.
LNWTD is a superior found footage movie in every aspiring. The pacing, acting, the characters, sound design, set design...they all come together smoothly like they're perfectly glued together. It evokes emotion, curiosity, it invokes anticipation, fear. You just can't stop watching it.
Nevertheless, one of the best made horror movies of 2023 and became one of my top favorite ff films ever made. I wish they would make more movies like this. If you haven't seen it yet, you definitely should. I promise you, it's gonna be a wild ride.
The House on Mansfield Street (2018)
Not worthy of your time
I don't care if a movies is made on a shoestring budget, especially if it's a found footage movie. But this one really tested my patience. The director has no clue about building characters, tension as well as ideal pacing for a movie. This was a very amateur attempt at filmmaking and it shows in every single scene. Here's an original dialogue from the scene so you decide yourself:
"I heard some loud noises coming outside my bedroom door. And then again, it's snowing heavily so..." something like that. I'm not kidding. This is the logic of this movie which seems like it was written by an 11 year old. What on earth has snowing anything to do with noises coming outside your bedroom door. You're inside buddy, not outside. I could possibly force myself to take it lightly if it was a thunderstorm perhaps, but snow???
The main issue of this movie besides the poor logic, is that this annoying lead character does stuff in front of the camera first, and then it tells to the camera AGAIN about what just happened:)))) WHY??? Why would you do something like that unless you have no clue what you're doing or you're trying to extend the movie's runtime hoping that we wouldn't notice. Well, we did Mr Director, we did. We're not stupid to not to.
Look, maybe you absolutely adore found footage films and your expectations are really low. But I assure you it can't be as low as this movie's quality standards. It's that bad. Terrible acting, a character you don't care, no plot, very amateur sound and visual effects. I'd PASS this one if I were you.
Tarot (2024)
A huge fail
Sometimes you really don't care about if the idea is original or not. At the end of the day, almost everything has already been done to death. Haunted houses, serial killers, vampires, werewolves, witches, zombies etc you name it. A bunch of teenagers messing with stuff and then getting cursed isn't an original idea and it doesn't even excite you when you hear it.
However, I believe a movie becomes original not with its premise. It becomes original with its great characters, intriguing plot and a mind bending twist in the end.
Unfortunately, Tarot has none of these in it. The storyline is very predictable, the kills are cheesy, the characters are unlikeable and the ending is just meh. There are no redeeming qualities in this movie whatsoever. It's more like it was written and directed by a 12 year old.
The reason why this movie got poor reviews from the audience is because its universe isn't very believable. Characters are just dumb, especially the guy with the big head, the monsters are laughable and the jump scares don't work. There are so many of them one after another that you get desensitized after 5 minutes or so.
I don't know about you but I'm really sick of horror movies letting me down. Bad movie after bad movie just tells me that Hollywood has to stop with this nepotism nonsense and give more chance to independent filmmakers if they want to make their money back from their movies.
In conclusion: I wouldn't pay for this one if I were you. Skip it altogether if you can, as it's a really badly done horror movie.
The Houses October Built 2 (2017)
I can't believe I wasted 90 minutes of my life for this!
The first one wasn't anything mind blowing but at least it was different. I've been to haunted houses a bunch of times during my early years so, they have a sentimental value to me. It reminds me of my childhood memories so I was okay with the concept of watching different hay rides etc across the country.
But the second movie took this too far. Out of 90 minutes, almost 70-75 minutes of it is like a documentary about haunted houses in different cities which gets pretty boring and painful after 30 minutes. If you manage to bear till the end, you get a stupid superfluous twist that was more cringey than shocking to be honest. At that point, you're so bored and done with this movie that you don't really care about what happens to them anymore. You just want it to be over with.
Instead of changing the ending of the first one, if they went with their relatives or loved ones etc coming together to look for them or try to find out who these maniacs were, so the justice could be served, it would be a ten times better movie than this.
Unfortunately, the filmmakers decided to choose the lazy way out and went with a 70 minute filler documentary with a terrible ending and destroyed both the movie and the franchise instead. I said destroyed because I doubt anyone would care to see a third one after this fiasco.
If you love ff horror films and your expectations are low, I still wouldn't recommend this movie.
Life of Belle (2024)
Not Good. Paranormal Activity Rip Off
I love found footage movies and really wanted to like this one, but it's so bad that it's almost unwatchable. I guess the actress is the director's wife or sister since both share the same last name, which is a terrible thing to do when making a feature film.
I understand that many people don't have a lot of money to make a movie, but if you can't even afford an actor, then you shouldn't make that movie until you have the money for it. Actors are the most important part of a movie. They can save a lot, including bad directing and a bad script.
But if your actors suck, your film will suck, period. No fancy camera, location, or storyline will matter because your film won't be believable. I don't understand how most indie filmmakers don't consider this. They use the budget as an excuse and cheap out on their actors, who are the foundation of a movie. Bad acting throws everything else out the window. Nothing matters anymore.
And this girl who plays the mom can't act her way out of a paper bag. She just doesn't have it in her. Her performance screams amateur, and because they probably didn't have a fully written screenplay, it appears to me that they just winged it on set, improvising many scenes.
This made it look even worse, as being able to improvise requires a whole other level of talent in acting. Here's some dialogue from the movie so you can understand it better. The mom screams in one scene and then starts talking to her husband:
"What happened? Why did you scream?"
"Nothing. Just the craziness...in my head...I guess?"
"Did you take your medicine?"
"Yes, I did."
So, this is the level of writing in this found footage movie, and when you add amateur acting on top of bad writing, the result is, of course, a disaster.
As for the plot of the movie, there's not much to talk about. For some reason, the dad places multiple cameras in the house, and on top of that, they buy their daughter a regular DSLR camera so she can record herself. Why? Why don't they just get her a phone so she doesn't have to carry around that bulky camera with lenses and stuff? Nobody knows, and it makes no sense whatsoever.
Then the dad goes on a business trip, and the kids are stuck with the crazy mom who keeps talking to herself. Eventually, her mental health deteriorates, and as you can guess, she totally loses it in the last 5 minutes. But why she goes crazy so fast is never explained. Hearing voices isn't a valid reason for it.
My advice to the filmmaker is to get people who can write and act in his movies. Having a passion for horror films doesn't necessarily mean you can write. Save your money and get good actors and someone who can write if you want to make good movies in the future.
But if all you want is to shoot something and upload it on the internet, then keep doing what you're doing. Just don't expect to have any fans other than your close friends and family.
It Shall Not Be Named (2023)
Entertaining little indie movie
This movie had a very interesting premise so I decided to give it a shot. I love movies about witchcraft and occultism and having a psycho roommate story element on top as a cherry made me say "Shut up and just take my money."
The storyline itself is creepy enough because of the fact that it could happen to any of us. The thought of having an unwanted person in your home indefinitely, where you're supposed to feel the safest is just terrifying and this movie explores this what if scenario pretty well.
Don't get me wrong though. This movie isn't perfect by any means. The pacing is good, the story and the characters are interesting and there's a lot of mystery stuff going on as well. However, if you're an avid horror fan who is looking for a very disturbing and/or scary movie to have sleepless nights, this isn't your movie.
I'd say this is more in line with Lifetime thriller movies rather than an art film like Hereditary etc. It moves fast, easy to watch, the acting isn't the best and it's mainly a contained horror movie. But the concept is good enough and it has some nice pop music to listen to.
That said, if you're in the mood for a background movie where you won't lose sleep over it or if you're having a girls night and you need something light while catching up with some gossip, I'd say give this one a shot. However, if you want to be scared endless and want to sleep with the lights on for a week, you can pretty much skip this one.
Frogman (2023)
I would recommend this only for found footage fans
As we all know, found footage fans love their movies religiously. You could put one person in a one bedroom apartment and people will still watch it all the way to the end. It's just the way it is.
Frogman is one of those movies that doesn't have a lot to show for. The budget is very limited and the acting is just bad overall. The girl has her moments during the funny moments but as soon as crap hits the fan, her acting abilities takes a nose dive which is understandable. It's really hard to pull it off with a budget like this.
But the main problem with this movie isn't the budget or the acting. No found footage actor is winning an oscar any time soon. The real problem with this movie is its unlikeable characters. They're pretty much hard to bear with for 80 something minutes, especially the main character Dallas made me want to turn it off and spend my time on something else. But I resisted the urge and stuck with it through the end.
Frogman's story isn't original by any means and the costume design is super cheap. It's so cheap that even those fast cuts, glitch effects and shaky cam isn't enough to hide its imperfections.
If you're a found footage fan, you should check it out just because it's a found footage movie. But if you're looking for a decent horror movie, this isn't it.
388 Arletta Avenue (2011)
Could've been better
Discovered this movie on Tubi through a letterboxed list and decided to give it a try. I don't really like mystery films as I don't have the patience for it haha but the plot piqued my interest so I sticked around till the end.
The overall experience was okay but the ending was a total let down for me. I don't like when a writer takes the easy route and doesn't bother with explaining the why. We only got to see the how which is totally disrespectful to the viewer's time in my opinion. It's like "Hey, I know you committed an hour and a half of your life to my film but you're not getting an answer from me."
This usually happens if the writer is an amateur and tries to chew bigger than he/she can bite. They really don't know how to tie it all up nicely so they just don't bother explaining it at all. If this was an art movie, I probably could've been more flexible. But this is a mystery thriller movie with found footage elements to it. So it doesn't make any sense to hold back information from the viewer.
Other than that, the acting was fine. I found that the character wasn't very likable and at times I seriously questioned the poor choices he made.
Also the approach of the law enforcement wasn't very realistic which made the movie look a bit silly and childish. If someone is telling you that they found a severed animal head in their mailbox, and the guy claims his wife is missing, I bet they do more than just filling out a form.
Anyway, it's an old movie but if you are someone who needs to watch a whodunnit without knowing who really done it, then check it out on Tubi tonight.