It is reasonable to describe this movie as Big Brother done with the style of the Blair Witch Project, although it would be unfair to label this movie as a Blair Witch Project seeing as how it implies that every horror movie done in a `documentary/realism' style with unusual camera positions is an actual homage to that movie.
Set-up here is pretty simple: 5 people in a house. Must stay in house for six months. Cannot ever leave the house at night. If any one person leaves they all lose and do not get the one million dollars awaiting them at the end. Grand. However, surprise ahoy, things start going weird towards the end and they must begin to wonder: Who is paying to view them? Why are they bothered? And will any of them survive?
Problems with the movie abound. Firstly we've dull characters. Some are so dull they blend into one another and become hard to distinguish, which is rather unfortunate since we're meant to. Only one character - the paranoid cynic - had any `depth' to them and their role was way too obvious. Sorry you can't misdirect me like that, I've seen it before and done better. Secondly we've got the structure of the movie. The first two-thirds are a hit and miss affair with tension. The `jump' moments are too sparse, too unconnected. There's an atmosphere built up by them, which has dissipated too much before the next event. It doesn't create unease so much as a greater indifference towards the movie. The final third is too derivative of the `hack-and-slash' genre and adds nothing to it except for an ending, which I admittedly enjoyed.
It's not all bad though. There is the way the movie is done. It's viewed primarily through web cams. Thus we're treated to some interesting point-of-views and techniques as the cameras focus on the participants. There's a nice night-vision element where everyone is in green with eerily lit eyes. There're also some nice sounds via a white noise effect. Some found this grating, but I found it more effective in creating a sense of things being off kilter than the traditional orchestral effect. There's an ending which made me smile and, despite their scarcity, one or two relatively decent `jump' moments. The sense of it being just that bit different helps lift it out of forgettable mediocrity but it cannot elevate it to a description of being good. I think a 5.8/10 is about fair.
Set-up here is pretty simple: 5 people in a house. Must stay in house for six months. Cannot ever leave the house at night. If any one person leaves they all lose and do not get the one million dollars awaiting them at the end. Grand. However, surprise ahoy, things start going weird towards the end and they must begin to wonder: Who is paying to view them? Why are they bothered? And will any of them survive?
Problems with the movie abound. Firstly we've dull characters. Some are so dull they blend into one another and become hard to distinguish, which is rather unfortunate since we're meant to. Only one character - the paranoid cynic - had any `depth' to them and their role was way too obvious. Sorry you can't misdirect me like that, I've seen it before and done better. Secondly we've got the structure of the movie. The first two-thirds are a hit and miss affair with tension. The `jump' moments are too sparse, too unconnected. There's an atmosphere built up by them, which has dissipated too much before the next event. It doesn't create unease so much as a greater indifference towards the movie. The final third is too derivative of the `hack-and-slash' genre and adds nothing to it except for an ending, which I admittedly enjoyed.
It's not all bad though. There is the way the movie is done. It's viewed primarily through web cams. Thus we're treated to some interesting point-of-views and techniques as the cameras focus on the participants. There's a nice night-vision element where everyone is in green with eerily lit eyes. There're also some nice sounds via a white noise effect. Some found this grating, but I found it more effective in creating a sense of things being off kilter than the traditional orchestral effect. There's an ending which made me smile and, despite their scarcity, one or two relatively decent `jump' moments. The sense of it being just that bit different helps lift it out of forgettable mediocrity but it cannot elevate it to a description of being good. I think a 5.8/10 is about fair.