I watch a lot of horror movies. A LOT. Like, 3-4 every week. In fact, I often stream ones publicly available and watch them over the internet with my friends.
Yesterday I watched this movie with my friends. We went into it knowing the budget and knowing the IMDb score was very poor. We were absolutely blown away and super impressed by the quality presented in the acting and the effects.
This movie has gotten a lot of hate for various reasons. The trailer was absolutely terrible, and apparently consulting the forums the makers were suspect of using sockpuppet accounts to upvote this film.
This movie DESERVES good ratings though. We watched several movies after this that had budgets of $1 million+ and at the end of the night, we all agreed that this film blew the rest away. There's a absolutely terrific buildup and a great payoff to a lot of the scares in this movie.
Things I like about this movie:
Seems VERY real compared to most found footage films. Characters are VERY believable, fantastic and underrated actors combined with subtle effects (that are impressive in hindsight) make this seem real. Several chat members watching this movie with me that joined in late asked if this was real.
Uses tropes, but uses tropes incredibly well. Mr. Kellogg absolutely did his research before making this movie. It has several themes present in Blair Witch and other "found footage" movies. However, it takes the formula and polishes it very well. There is a great buildup and arc to the story, and the few things that could be considered jumpscares in this movie have a buildup of their very own and you know they are coming.
Surprisingly disturbing and unsettling imagery. This movie, especially during the climax, is FANTASTIC. The scene of the ghost running down the hall near the end genuinely made me uncomfortable and I loved it. Whoever did the effects for this movie deserves praise. What they did on a $5000 budget is nothing short of a honest to god miracle.
Satisfying ending. I wont spoil it, because this movie deserves to be watched.
What I don't like:
A LOT of screaming, sometimes borderline annoying. Although this in itself made the situations seem more real and believable, one female actor specifically had a very loud and pronounced scream, and due to her frequent screaming my stream chat was being spammed by "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" and emotes during many scenes where she was yelling. Yes, it was so bad it became a f***ing meme.
The camera was very shaky at times and made it hard to appreciate what was going on. Again, this made it seem more real, but at the same time it made it hard to be spooked when you had to squint through camera shaking to see the ghosts. There was a lot of "What the f*** was that" in chat during these scenes, not due to fear but due to genuine confusion due to how hard it was to see during these segments.
One of the female actors was genuinely annoying as a character. Again, she acted very well (all the actors were great at their worst), but she was just annoying, especially once the ghost possession happens to another female character. (Sorry for vague wording but i'm doing my best to spoil this as little as possible).
This is an insanely ambitious and well made movie, but I feel like people aren't giving it a chance due to how, well, REAL it looks. There are a lot of surface level imperfections in regards to it being a film, but thats why its so good. It seems REAL. It doesn't seem like characters reading off a script, it seems like a genuine situation where the camera-work is sometimes very shoddy and the characters have overlapping personalities (Like in real life, where everyone isn't forced into a role).
I applaud Mr. Kellogg, and I cant wait to see more from him. This movie single- handedly restored my faith in indie-horror.
I have visited IMDb for several years, but this movie is the reason I finally made an account. Do yourself a favor and watch this movie.
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