Series Premier - The Ring

I thought we’d open the blog this year with a series on The Ring franchise. Soon, Rings will be hitting the theaters and I feel like The Ring had a pretty big impact in 2002. Honestly, I think it was one of the first true horror adaptations where J-Horror met an American audience with a mostly unchanged story. Godzilla can feel free to get angry, but I don’t find anything scary or terrifying about the Godzilla of the 50’s when he first entered our theaters. If you want a true masterpiece in a mixture of Japanese and American film making watch both Kill Bills. Moving on, that’s not horror, but damn did they do a great job of marrying those two worlds.

 Cabin Fever (Roth), Blade II (Del Toro), 28 Days Later (Boyle), Resident Evil (Anderson) and the list goes on and on. What do they all have in common? They answered a call to a stressed American populace and gave breath to some fun movies that had their own sets of rules and spawned or extended franchises. At this point Resident Evil is ready for a reboot and 28 Weeks Later was great, but I don’t see a 28 Months Later in our future. Cabin Fever had a bad remake (my opinion), and here we are with Rings.

 The basic premise is pretty simple to get through how you get there is a complex detective game. A girl named Samara had the power of Thoughtography. She could burn images into your mind. The images she put into her adopted parents minds were so awful that she was tortured and left to die in a well over seven days. A videotape depicting several images of Samara’s life curses the viewer to die in seven days. You could escape this fate by passing the curse on. In Rachel’s case (The primary protagonist of the first two films) she creates a tape and shows her ex-boyfriend while investigating the tape. This makes her safe ...sorta. It's kind of unclear. Samara comes back and haunts Rachel in the second film but we’ll deal with that later.

 Common baddies of 2002 films provided their heroes with a physical challenge of some sort. Crazy zombies in 28 Days Later and Resident Evil, bad ass vampires in Blade II and Queen of the Damned, unkillable but still...stoppable monster killers like Uber Jason from Jason X. Samara was different and thank the horror gods for that. You could not physically confront Samara and the film never offered that as an out to any of its protagonists until the second film. 

 The next series of posts will discuss the Ring, the Ring 2 and Rings but not all at once. I’ll outline the story so you’re caught up for the upcoming film and we’ll discuss some of the importance of the film to the Horror community. Until then, Stay Tuned!

Short Film: You Only Die Once (Dark Comedy)

Hello all you ghouls out there. Let me tell you how excited I was about this little gem that showed up in my twitter feed. You Only Die Once. A short film of modern day quips, jokes and a spanning beyond a typical monster/vampire story.  Here's the film for you to take a viewing of.

I found this film to be special because it brought me to several times in my life where my sister (#JenHorror via twitter) and I would discuss what we would do while making our own films. While we might not ever pick up a camera or pen out an entire script, I could feel the energy and fun of the cast and crew on this film.

This film takes you into the life of a man gone vampire as he attempts to bring his girlfriend...ex-girlfriend and her friends into the fold of his vamperic harem. While you might think that there's going to be a lot of vampire action, this film really centers around the core group of friends and that's what I think makes it so strong. 

This is a dark comedy so you won't be shaking in your boots and the body count is pretty low, like single digits, but after you finish the film you get a chance to really reflect on some of the themes that exist outside of the jokes. I feel like I have to give some praise to the situational humor. The use of eating a pie that looks like human bits...blood...guts take a pick. The way the conversation reflects the poor choices in our dating partners (Which are often held within our own minds, admit it people!). Its really fun the way its done.

Not a lot of tense moments, and I'm a guy who is going to be cheering for the vampires, but like I said this film is filled with undertones of the friendship between the would be trio of vampire slayers. The dialog of trying to turn them against each other is full of humor, moments of uncertainty between their bond and failed attempts at vamperic turning (Oh come on Vampire guy! You could have had her! You deserve to be staked several times!)

This is an important piece to me because YouTube offers the ability for people to take small productions and bring them into a world of viewers. While we celebrate undertakings like Halloween or The Babadook (Yep cross generational references!), we have to understand that little pieces like this with people like Amanda and company are where these gigantic risks and projects start. They are the roots to things that are greater and I'm happy to have randomly found it. 

While I won't condone the use of a YOLO ...YODO joke, I will say this is charming, fun, absolutely happy that we get some modern jargon type jokes and its a quick nibble on a piece of art that will be the foundation of an even greater career for those involved. Well, done my undead friends behind this one. Can't wait to see what you do next. Until then, send me some production shirt or something cool to wear around town. 

Movie Review: Dracula Untold

I'll make this one pretty quick. Dracula Untold is an origin story to Vlad prior to him becoming a vampire. While it dawns the rating of PG 13 (Boooo...) there's plenty to take home from the film itself. 

This movie actually does an okay job of dealing with the mythos of Vlad. By that I mean it doesn't just piss itself and turn into a fanatically stupid film right off the bat. There's a central conflict where Vlad needs the powers of a recently found vampire to save his people.

The great news about all this is that the film spends very little time worrying about the politics of it all and jumps right into the vampire doing cool vampire things and Vlad being pushed into making an unholy contract with him. Yes...there's some sort of back story to how bad ass Vlad was at some point, but essentially he need Vamp powers or else his land is going to get fucked up and he'll lose his son.

Alright. So vampire fight, don't eat people...vampire fight...don't eat people. Vampire fight. You get the point. The gimmick is that if Vlad feeds he'll remain a cursed member of the undead forever and release his master vampire from his cave like prison. Last 3 days without feeding you're back to human. No harm no foul.

Needless to say some shit goes down and it leads to possibly the dumbest final fight in a movie I've seen in a long long time. I was really enjoying what they were doing with this film until the last fight. Spoilers baby! Oh the spoilers! 

Vlad fights a man who is using pieces of silver coin and flinging them at Vlad to harm him. You know, vampires hate silver and fuck those coins! He can't take it! It's a span of 10 minutes that I wish I could have back. I won't get it back though. It's okay, its for you love of the reader.

Alright, this film isn't bad for the first two thirds of it. The recycling of vampire fighting is a little dumb, but all in all it's a decent enough walk on the wild side of Vlad. you get a lot of good character interactions and they get right to the point about how bad ass the vampires are.

That last part with the fight and the coins is terrible. This all leads to a final scene where Vlad meets Mina and a Van Helsing kinda fella says some stupid catch phrase "Let the games begin" as he begins walking towards Vlad as he walks away with Mina. This essentially can mean that this series of movies will continue but I would prefer they don't.

Okay, let's be clear on why this movie isn't complete garbage. They took some careful writing and a lot of time to make Vlad's plight very human. In fact, its probably one of the more human takes on the Dracula mythos. No one really asked for the film, but it's kind of an HBO goodie for a bit. If you can get past the political drama and the fight with the sultan its not bad. In fact, honestly, the vampire fighting is pretty cool to start with, but by the third time you're over it.

All in all, you could watch this, its okay to do so while you're working on something maybe, but don't expect this to be a great addition to your friendly fanged collection.

4827 flying bats erupting from a cave out of 82750 pieces of silver that the sultan randomly had around to shoot at Vlad.

Movie Review: Ava's Possessions

Recently we've focused on A Headful of Ghosts and I thought it would be a great idea to bring it back to a dark comedy. Today's we will talk about Ava's Possessions.

Ava's Possessions starts at the point that an exorcism is already taken place. The fiction of the world we're dropped into gives the viewers the idea that possession is almost an everyday occurrence. The people of that world aren't too keen on interacting with the possessed during or after the possession, but there are support groups, therapy and in our case Ava is even able to get her job back. 

Ava begins the process of trying to figure out what she did while she was possessed, who she did while she was possessed and putting her life back together while having moments of demonic influence. People who are possessed are much likelier to be possessed again.

While we're treated to some pretty funny moments, there are also some creepier things taking place when it comes to the interaction with the demon and Ava. Nothing too horrific, we're still casing this as a dark comedy but definitely some mind fucking taking place. Oh the little surprises this demon did while it controlled Ava is pretty wonderful too.

Eventually, Ava joins a support group to work through the post possession trauma and the movie takes off on its own away from following predetermined possession and horror tropes. You have interactions with people who were possessed that are really genuine and also funny.

This is where I think we get this very intentional mirror of true therapy in life. The people who go to therapy make friends, build a support system and go through their own post-demon 12 step. Its pretty cool honestly. They are forced to make amends with the people that they hurt while possessed. They are constantly doing exercises to work on the inner person so they can avoid future possession. They also intentionally reallow the demon into them to try and control it. 

As time goes on there are people who want to be repossessed from teh freedom and power that they felt when they were possessed. From there we work our way to realities, revelations and at the end of the film we're given kind of a fake twist. Its really not all that interesting, and I'm not going to take much away from the score of the film because of the end. Its an ending that's required to continue the story or the franchise and honestly I'd like to see more stories from the world that is setup.

The acting is done well, we have some cool cameos from known actors, and some horror tropes with the demon and the possession are done pretty well. I appreciate how they crafted the world in the movie. They give you a chance to see how little it mattered to people about being possessed, but they still had a healthy guard up around people who came at them while possessed.

This is a fun movie, definitely worth the watch. I'd give it 3.5 martinis of blood out of the 0 that get drank in the movie.

Video Game Review: Doom

In 1993 we were given a first person view into a demonic invasion. We were asked how bad do we want to be hurt and then put into a platformer/FPS that is still loved, played and talked about today. With pistols in hand we moved through the environment picking up power ups, weapons, health and armor. We watched as the animation of a marine's face would change as we looked around, took damage and increasingly blood would show up on our portrait. This was Doom. A simple idea that led to a franchise that enjoyed a reboot several days ago.

Doom (2016) is a return to the nightmare that took our gaming hearts by storm. The graphics, the platforming, the power up collections, the collectible in hard to reach places and the enemies, my gosh the enemies are all here to give us this love letter to the original Doom. Let's talk about it, shall we?

I'll get into the review with minor spoilers below. If you already are loving the idea of a love letter to those who were all about the original Doom, support the blog by buying your copy here:

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Graphics: Doom brings some major gore in some major ways. The graphics are amazing with their blood effects, the splatter patterns and the pure unadulterated violence that this game franchise is known for. There's some serious time put into the animations that your character goes through with each weapon he picks up. There's also a grand array of ways to slicing your foes in half with the chain saw which is just marvelous. Fucking marvelous!

The game takes the environments of Mars and breathes a little bit of life into it. While we don't get set pieces like Uncharted, we do enjoy a pretty intricate facility and some time on the surface of the planet as well. We are on Mars so the color tones are a little one sided. Lots of browns, reds and a mix of yellows and greens to form the path that the players take. 

The enemies (which its Doom, this is kind of important) are extrordinarily well done. The animations they take are both threatening and creepy. They can inflict a large amount of damage in a short amount of time meaning even the earliest baddies can pack a punch if you're not careful. The designs and AI of the enemies are pretty good all in all. We're playing Doom, so we aren't going to take cover and we're not going to get flushed out. This game is about aggression. The enemies show it too.

There's also some great death scenes, a call out to Terminator 2, some really cute collectibles and when you start going in for kills that are up close and personal you really appreciate the time that the developer put into the animation. Graphics are pretty big here since this is the next gen, this is a reboot of Doom and in order to keep an audience engaged you need to offer them something to look at. 

Like that, right above. I want my fucking arm back you son of a bitch!

Sound: Doom has a pretty great handle on ambient noises happening around you. You almost have some sort of humming, zapping, walking, growling and the facility is rarely quiet. The voice acting is done well enough. There's some life done in it, but there's nothing to write home about that. One of the things I do want to give Doom credit for is how they work in a sound track during the fights. Its a subtle change from the mechanical and demonic noises that happen around you and then gives you a foundation of generic rock to listen to while you're dealing out some major damage. 

While the sound won't make this game a block buster, if it were missing you'd definitely notice.

Story: The story is an attempted reboot of Doom. So, we're getting this mix of Doom 3 with the general idea of what Doom was always eclipsing on. There's a technology that uses Hell for something. Then a lady decides fuck all I'm going to help demons invade this place and then she'd be a killer awesome demon. Just look at this lady (Yes its from a German game screen capture, best I could do on a quick search at the moment.)

She's going all sorts of demonic in that. 

Look, its Doom, there's a little bit of a story that's basically pieced together to get you from one fight to another. That's that.

MultiPlayer/Replay Value: It exists but I'm not sure how long any gamer will spend playing Doom multiplayer. The world if vast and with so much to do, so much to play and the fact that Halo, Gears and CoD/BF all exist its hard to make an argument as to why people should stick around and play Doom multiplayer. One of the modes do let you play as demons, but there's not a lot of substance there. This is kind of a one and done game but the ability to hang out with your friends, jump into the game, pass off the controller and enjoy the moments of death is there. That's kind of hard to find now a days. Its weak in this area.

Related to Horror: So, you're here reading a horror blog, lets get to it Roy. Is it scary? Is it terribly frightening? Am I going to wet myself in fear? Well, no. Not really. Doom 3 was terrifying. Mostly because they used the elements of darkness and then setup a never ending jump scare. The blood is massive, the facility is a fun environment to run around and kill demons in but its not really scary. We have a lot of horror titles now a days and while Doom fringes into our territory with this addition to the library. It doesn't feel scary and there's no impending sense of I'm going to get fucked up. My score for this is based highly on this, so don't take it the wrong way at the end.

Final Score: Doom's reboot is like having a snack but still being hungry. Sure I can have a lot of gore but there's not a lot of fear involved in the game. Yes, we're dealing with hell. Yes the demons are all awful and terrible looking and want to gut us as fast as they can, but horror wise there's things that are missing. Its not from a lack of trying, there's plenty of moments that can be a bit of jump scaring, but it's just not fulfilling for my dark heart. With that said, its Doom, its fun, my gosh is it fun. There's tons of weapons, tons of enemies, the bosses are fucking killer, the environments are great to play in, the horror isn't there. 3 severed limbs out of a human.

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Yea, I'm going to rip your fucking head off mate.

Monthly Feature: A Head Full of Ghosts

Paul Tremblay wrote a masterful tale about a family that goes through an impossible situation when the eldest daughter seems to be possessed by a demon. This idea alone doesn't bring any new ideas to the table until you find out that the story is being told through three separate mediums and all of them give you a different angle, idea or suspicion to what's really happening. 

If you don't want spoilers then you shouldn't read further. Instead, support the blog and buy your copy here: http://amzn.to/1Xuofot Trust me, this is going to be a powerful read for you.  Need more of a hint of how great this book is. This happened last night (last night being the night before I wrote this, not necessarily the posting or when you read this)

On with the blog! These monthly features are pieces of media that inspire horror fans. They deserve some recognition for the things they accomplish (which I'll outline) and you won't go wrong picking it up for yourself.

Paul Tremblay is no stranger to writing a piece that reflects on society's short comings, the comedically odd nature of reality and he's done so before this book. He wrote Swallowing a Donkey's Eye which is the modern day Animal Farm. This book features a reality TV show in the midst of a break down of an entire family. A demon exorcism and family shattering all for the entertainment of America.

Character wise there's four primary entities. Merry, who is our main character, tells the story from both the eyes of her young self and a twenty something woman breaking into writing. Marjorie is a girl who is believed to be possessed or might have a mental illness. The parents (John and Sara) are foils to each other. John becomes religious and wants the exorcism while Sara becomes a drunk and loses her ability to protect her daughters.

Other characters fill in over time. Father Wanderly, a priest who is going to perform the exorcism. Barry and Ken who are TV producers and writers respectively, and some of their crew. Another major character is an author who is writing a book about Merry's story. Her name is Rachel and she acts more like a representative for us. She asks some questions we're wondering and her reactions are similar to the ones I was having when I went through this book.

We start off with a true love letter to the exorcism. Marjorie begins to display symptoms of demonic possession. She's making up odd stories, talking with strange and scary voices, she's almost harming her sister, and we have an amazingly disgusting vomit scene. I seriously had to stop my audio book and give silent props to Tremblay on his descriptions. John takes Marjorie to the church (against her mother's wishes) and then begins the road towards exorcism. 

The book is divided into several parts. You get a pretty clear indication of when a new part is starting because you read through a blogger's post about the TV series (The Possession) that shows the events with a camera's eye. Its a really fun way to split up the story, to alter the pacing and we get a very indepth look at what's happening on the TV show. The blogger's name is Karen, but she's actually Merry. We now have 3 different point of views through one character. How fun is that!

When the TV crews arrive the family starts going through some really dark times. Mom is drinking a lot of the time. Dad is blaming anyone but himself for what's happening to his daughter and the book states that both mom and dad have done a lot to get Marjorie the help she needs. There's a lot of indication that Marjorie might be going to a psychologist but she's certainly finding ways to avoid taking her medicine. While Merry believes Marjorie is faking, the reader is left to make that decision. Marjorie's actions become stranger and her personality changes several times and then reverts back. 

This is still a Tremblay novel. There's some back door indications that there's a lot of money involved and the church stands to make a lot of money off the TV show just as the generic TV corporation will be making their money too. Marjorie makes some statements about this during her "possessed" moments which are brilliant and sword sharp.

The relationship between the sisters is an over all reflection of the state of the family. The beginning of the book has them nearly inseparable. They make up stories together and write them down together. They play together. Merry's best friend is Marjorie. The progression of love and trust to hate and distance is done in slow and nauseating moments. The love and trust of a very young girl is being broken by her older sister. We're not sure if its a demon or her mental illness that's doing this.

You're told through out the book that Merry was a young girl when it all took place. You're left to wonder what's made up, what's real and what was things that they were doing on the TV show to increase the scare factor. Merry makes several statements that no one story is accurate so you're left to fill in some gaps which is fine. You're individual imagination can come up with what it's like to live with a possessed pre-teen. Fucking hell I assume.

Eventually, the exorcism takes place and we have a dissection of what Merry saw when she was a young child, what happened on the TV show and the fall out after the exorcism. Everything is quick in the moments of the exorcism. It's not how you think it would go though. You have everything that's on par with the Exorcist but then its all very surreal and human. We're left with a "what the fuck were you doing." moment. All the people that came to help the family, the priests, the TV people and the groupies of both leave them all there.

Mom with her drinking, dad with his broken idea of religion, Marjorie with her illness and Merry is just left there by herself. The aftermath is a truly sad moment. A moment where you wonder if dad is losing his mind about to do something terrible to his family or is Marjorie manipulating Merry. 

During the story we get another thermometer that reflects the state of the family. There's protestors and as the book continues they move from just a couple of people with signs to a full compliment of hate church protestors with signs of "God hates Marjorie". As the protesting becomes worse you can directly reflect that to the state of the marriage, family and Marjorie.

Now here's the big one. The question that poses itself several times is, is Marjorie possessed or is she faking it? A young Merry believes she's faking it and the older believes that Marjorie is sick. The only people who fully commit to the idea that she's possessed in John and the priest. Both of these characters have antagonistic roles within the story, but they are attempting to help Marjorie in the way that they know how.

The final interaction with Merry and Marjorie is one of the most shocking works in recent memory. Marjorie tells Merry about her father's fall into madness. He's built a shrine in the basement to the failed show and to his falling family. He's been talking to a hate church about what to do now (ironically the same hate church that protested his house and he got into a fist fight with) and now he's planning on poisoning them all.

In order to stop this, Marjorie convinces Merry to use a small amount of the poison to make their parents go to sleep so they can go to the police and save themselves. In the ensuing moments, Marjorie arrives to eat dinner and happily and almost manically eats the poison with her family. There is no shrine in the basement and Merry has killed her family. The little 8 year old girl has been manipulated into murdering her family. They find her sucking on the finger of her 3 day dead mom. Holy fucking fuck fuck! Paul Tremblay you are amazing!

The book ends shortly after this with a scene that's reflecting the moments of the exorcism when Merry was younger. We're left with the knowledge that people can see their breath in the final scene the same way people could see it during the exorcism. Could it be the demon? Could it be something more? Could it be because Boston is fucking cold as hell? 

You can draw your own conclusion with all the evidence that is shown, but the things that take place in the background are probably the most heart breaking. Merry and Marjorie's break down is some of the hardest stuff I've encountered this year. The foreshadowing that's used outside of the 8 year old Merry's story just gives you the sense of the impending heart break.

I again have to give a nod to Tremblay being able to put his standard social issues into the book. They aren't really at the forefront of the story at any point in time, but you get the family in economic crisis and closed door deals and the craziness of it all.

This isn't a story that you read and think "This could happen to anyone." but it is a story that you read and you realize that the things that John does to try and help his family is some of the most terrible, wrong direction stuff you've ever seen. By the end you can realize that John is sick and so is Marjorie. You could also make a compelling argument that there was a demon and after the attempted exorcism it manipulated Merry into killing her family. Maybe we are the demons. Oooh...

Either way, this book is still tragic and its a modern twist on your typical possession. A Head Full of Ghosts is entirely worth of the awards that it has won and I can't wait to see where Tremblay goes next. Must read, keep it on your shelf and give it to someone who needs a good read. 

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Movie Review: The Blair Witch Project

This is an oldie but it has an important piece of horror history that needs to be discussed and acknowledged. The Blair Witch has a lot of gaping holes in its writing and dialog but they went mostly unnoticed at the time it was in theatres. In fact, while this movie was on the big screen the discussions around the water cooler was asking if people knew about the movie and how people wondered what happened to the characters. How could people just "disappear".

The two male actors in this movie were actually the Directors, writers and had a big vested interest in the movies. They'd both go on to work on more projects including one of them working on a great little film called Midnight Son. There was one big problem in the plan. The actress that gave us the iconic image of:

You know that lady. Well, she went ahead and did some work in a Steak and Shake commercial. The other half of the watercooler conversations became "Well, I'm sure I saw her somewhere else" and it broke the momentary magic that the film had over the audience. In fact, without that magic, this film can be reduced to an okay but not overly great movie. 

The film follows three people as they make a documentary about the Blair Witch. They interview towns people and go to try to find the witch. That's super spooky in itself. See, we're talking about a time when filming began to really open up to everyone, not just some people who could afford a huge camera. 

Horror in and of itself did not adopt found footage films from the Blair Witch Project, but what did happen was people understanding that they could freely create whatever they wanted with a house hold budget and make statement. (McPherson Tapes, shout out to a shit movie that scared the hell out of people but was probably a more accurate shot at the first "found footage film")

I digress, the three go into the woods hunting the witch. During the time of the film we're told about the trials that took place (Salem Witch Trials to be specific ...well...sorta) We also get back story to some of the terrible things the witch did. So, naturally lets go unarmed as fuck, be without a map or back up system and try to find this woman. 

That's when shit gets real. They hear noises at night...noises in the woods spooky. They start finding dead animals and begin finding set pieces...er....sorry...the woods being messed with as they try to find their way out. Such as this:

My critique now a days as that without the idea of this being real, its lost its interesting moment in the sun. When this movie came out people were reading the police reports that were made on the website, and people were genuinely becoming invested in the story. After all, who hasn't had a moment of bravery and wanted to go hunt some fucking witches, right? Right.

What we do have is a film with a lot of shakey footage. A LOT of SHAKE. The interviews become unauthentic and uninteresting, the tension that is suppose to build loses its bite and the final moments of the film do not cause that unease or uncertainty that you felt when this first came out.

You're just left like a coke that has been left out all night long. There's still some sugar there, but the fizz is all gone. That's really sad to say too. The film actually does a really good job with the last 20 minutes or so. You have a scene where you're not sure what's happening to one of the characters. The very last scene is just a great stress creator. Just look at it.

So, the bad. Shakey cam. The film spends a lot of time contradicting itself. For example, you're told that the towns people don't want to talk about the witch then the next parts of the movie are all about the townspeople not shutting up about the witch. There's a lot of undeveloped tension. You're suppose to be filming a movie about this witch and you have nights where you listen to foot steps in the woods or other noises like cackling. Yet, the characters don't try to get this on film.

Worse documentary people ever.

The best part of the movie is really the last part of it and that's just a final epitaph to a film that couldn't hold up its end of the bargain when it comes to lasting horror. What this did for horror in general was much more impressive. A lot of younger people really believe that this is the first found footage film. I already shouted out what my guess for the first found footage movie is, but as you research more about the people who made the film they were inspired by...found footage films. That's right.

Over a 4+ year time frame this movie went from being an idea to a full creation. If I reviewed this movie when it first came out and the fear of it actually being real was still there, then I think I would say you have to watch this today! Right now! NOW NOW!

That's not the case. We're years and years later. What this film really did was pave the way (and quite literally sometimes) for films like V/H/S, V/H/S 2, Paranormal Activity and so on. While Heather Donahue (The actress of course) would find her way to making several indie films and an episode of its Always Sunny, the other two actors continued their time in horror. V/H/S 2's Director is in fact Eduardo Sanchez. He's also the Director for the TV series of From Dusk Til Dawn as well as Supernatural. He also did the second Blair Witch Project movie, but...lets...not...talk about that....

The point is that Blair Witch paved its way for others to find an expression.  I find the found footage films to be really fun to watch and sometimes far more terrifying than traditional filming and I think we'd have a lot less of that if this movie didn't exist. Final Verdict: Take a watch for historical significance but ...you can pass.

Final Thought: This film was the foundation for how horror would gain a new entry into the part's that terrify us. By taking the normal everyday person and empowering them with a camera, you could find new ways to tell stories and create much more compelling threats that bridged from a media form to everyday life.

While the movie doesn't stand up, the sentiment it leaves with it does.