Atrocious

A family are staying at their holiday home in Sitges in Catalonia, Spain, and one of the kids, Cristian, is fascinated about the myth of Melinda - a spirit of a woman who supposedly haunts the labyrinth outside the house grounds. Cristian gets more background stories regarding Melinda from a family friend, Carlos, but these versions of events are much more sinister than the version he already knew. Determined to see if there is any truth to the stories of Melinda, he and his sister, July, document everything they can. However, after their dog goes missing one day, things soon start taking a horrible turn for the worse.

Atrocious is a POV "documentary" style of film and while we all know that's not an original style anymore, the film is still very good. Making a labyrinth the subject matter for the myth of Melinda was good because they can be creepy enough through the day if you get lost, but to be lost in one at night (especially the one shown in the movie) and knowing of a myth surrounding the labyrinth is downright terrifying.

The night scenes are obviously where the movie escalates, and they ARE scary. You watch intently as Cristian tries to make his way out of the labyrinth at night as you never know what is going to happen. Even when he's supposedly safe in the house at times after, there is still that unsettled feeling of "what's going to happen?" The movie may be considered a wee bit slow for about the first 30 minutes or so, but I didn't feel that it was. For me it was all a good build up to the inevitable scarier scenes and climax of the movie.

The actors are all very believable in their parts, and do a really good job in making it seem like a real documentary of events. The end scene of the movie is a nice touch to make it that wee bit more convincing too (obviously can't say anything else it will give it away).

If you enjoy watching movies of this style then there's a good chance you'll enjoy Atrocious. Good film and well recommended.

First off to the reviewer complaining that it was too long the whole thing was an hour and 10 minutes! Have some patience It's one of the shortest movies i've ever watched!

This movie is about a family that owns a house out in the countryside of Spain. There is a legend involving the maze that is attached to their house. However the kids who are curious types are forbidden from their father from going in there.

Being a huge fan of hand camera horrors I was eager to discover this little gem. It's short and to the point before you know it. I have seen various ones such as Noroi, rec, etc, i am a veteran in this vein so take it from me it's good!

The thing I liked the most about it was it was very realistic feeling and very intense and creepy and at one point when they're in the woods I checked how much time was left on the movie cause i was anticipating a scare in one scene and I rarely do that with movies unless they're scary

Bottom line is, if you like hand camera horrors, realistic scenes and tense feelings with goose bumps watch this now and enjoy it! you won't be disappointed.

People on IMDb tend to rate hand camera horrors really low for some reason but I think most people that review and hate on them don't actually like that "genre"

To create a great environment for this type of movie: turn the lights out, watch on a big screen, and by yourself its only 70 minutes who cares if you're alone. I guarantee you if you set that formula up for yourself you'll be wide awake after like I am.

I was slightly looking forward to this and was greatly disappointed.

Firstly, don't call a movie "Atrocious" and then make a terrible movie. I don't really see the point of the title aside from being a description of the actual movie quality.

This is a "found footage" movie, some movies in this new category can be good and some can be terrible.

This movie seemed to be composed of mostly 40 minutes of quiet footage, setting up for the eventual crisis point. The crisis point is the remaining 35 minutes of running around with the camera from an unknown assailant while screaming.

No real scares, no real excitement, nothing but Atrocious.

Despite the mostly negative reviews, Atrocious is actually not thát bad. I enjoyed it more than I expected, maybe because my expectations were low.

The good: The setting was pretty good, I loved the house and the labyrinth (sigh, I wish I lived in such a place) and though it started out a bit dull and has it's predictable bits, there are a few enjoyable creepy moments. I was pretty happy to see that the end was not what I expected, and better than what I did expect. An other good thing is the brutality shown through the police photo's. You don't see anything really happen, but at the end the police files combined with the basement video make up for that and fill in the hole your imagination was still left with.

The bad: It's not a movie to watch when you suffer from motion sickness. I do have a sensitive stomach for movements and I thought it was only just bearable. That's one of the weaknesses of many 'Found Footage' movies, the shaky camera-work is just too much overdone. OK, when you are running you won't ever have a steady shot, but in the beginning of the movie one would expect at least a bit more of a steady hand. So that was actually pretty annoying. An other bad is that some bits are just too long, without anything happening, which makes you want to reach for the fast-forward button. There was too much darkness, and too much running through the night (yep, darkness, and night vision which shows nothing but trees). One last bad thing is the subtitling. I am not sure if I just had a bad version, but my, did it suck. All Spanish cursing was translated as 'drugs' which gives you a fair idea of the skills of the people who did the subbing.

I'm a bit left in the dark (pardon me the bad pun) when it comes to rating this movie. It has a lot of flaws, but the ending does make up for it, and I have seen worse Found Footage movies (like Paranormal Activity). Anyway, my advise would be to set your expectations low, and then you might even enjoy it like I did.

The film has a very promising premise for any horror fan - a story with paranormal elements, a small cast and filmed with a hand-held camera (think of the suspense!). This immediately sets the expectations high - I was expecting a Spanish Blair Witch Project or perhaps a successful spin-off of Rec.

In reality, the friends I went to the movies with got nauseous because of the constant shaking of the camera and I did not flinch once. It must be said, though, that Atrocious does a good job of misleading the viewer - something I rather enjoyed, but some others might find disappointing.

The biggest flaw, however, was that the movie got lost in itself. The producers were clearly so caught up with the whole amateur-footage-spooky-places-run-and-scream theme that it engulfed the whole movie, making everything else that happened inbetween seem like one long filler. And then combined with the completely unexpected ending, Atrocious might just leave you feeling a little indifferent about the whole thing - and nauseous, if you're like one of my friends.

Overall, it's a decent little horror flick, but nothing that would keep you up at night.