Daylight

I admit, with some hesitation, to having become a bit of a fan of the low budget found footage/hand held horror genre. I tend to be quite forgiving as I understand that these are mostly done by those who are still learning their craft combined with a few who have a true passion for the project.

While the acting was somewhat hit or miss I did admire the ambition of the story. There was a level of complexity and interwoven character histories that is unusual for this type of film. It stylistically made its way from a somewhat predictable beginning to an almost Clive Barker like place then through a very dark surreal phase and finally settled in to what I can only call a Gothic (did I mention I found it ambitious?).

This would not be for anyone who simply wants to have a good scare or a fan of slasher flicks. I can not even truly say it is for exorcism junkies as it was not what one would typically thinks of as that type of film. It was an almost experimental feeling magic carpet ride. For me, at least, it was an interesting ride.

It's the only thing that this steaming pile of @#% is scarier than. No acting No direction. No plot. No point. No sense. No believability. No effort. No way to get your wasted time back. Just say NO.As in How about this movie should have never daylight? Daylight plot holes so big you can see.....Daylight through them...What should the people who made this film and willingly subjected it to others never see again???,,,You guessed it Daylight....Out of all the horrible found footage films ever made which is actually the most horrible...Daylight! Why did the chicken cross the road to escape from the crappy film DAYLIGHT..If you want to break up with your gf/bf really recommend Daylight and then watch it with them.They're assuredly going to lose all respect for you.Yay 10 lines.I officially wrote more meaningful dialogue than in the entire film Daylight.

What a mess this movie was! I am almost at a loss for words. How do I even describe this movie?? Let's see....a super slow set up, about 10 different plot lines by the end including - paranormal elements, time travel, abused children, emotional trauma, murder, teleportation.. all culminating to a end that was nothing but people screaming, running around the various locations they teleport to, doors slamming, and camera interference, all of which lead to nothing. This movie tried so damn hard to do something different, but we were left with way too many plot developments, none of which get resolved. If this review sounds like a mess, it's simply because I am trying to describe the worst movie I have seen all year. Mind bending amounts of awfulness here. Oh, and the acting was horrible. At one point the camera guy actually whines "Oh man! Not again!!" after being teleported to a different location.

This was possibly the worst movie I've ever seen, regardless of genre. Constant quick cuts, grainy video, multiple characters speaking simultaneously to make the dialogue indecipherable in order to hide the fact that the plot is completely inane. The running time was 1 hour 37 minutes but it felt like it was 6 hours of torture. The only positive thing that I can say is at least it was free on Amazon Prime.

Daylight seems to be, at first glance, a run-of-the-mill found footage film, rife with lots of running around (both at night AND during the day, because why not?), shaky hand-held camera work with gratuitous glitching from the editing room, several characters who insist on running said camera for every conceivable moment of their day (which they try and justify, but I mean, come on), and performances from actors which aren't terrible, per se, but which certainly won't win any Academy Awards.

But while accomplishing all of that, Daylight achieves something very, very different, and something that probably doesn't jive with a lot of self-proclaimed "horror buffs." The problem here is that I don't feel like Daylight, at its core, is really a horror film. There are no crap-your-pants scares, no ghastly exorcisms or CG ghouls flying around, and no over-the-top gore to appease those with bloodlust. Instead, Daylight is a slow-burn thriller spiced with the ingredients of a standard horror but couched in a formula that borders on art house, and the result is nothing short of intriguing.

The entire first half of the film, in fact, is nothing more than a crime investigation, which takes a couple of viewings just to sort out who's who and exactly why and how they all seem to know each other. But it's certainly not boring. Act 2 definitely tests one's patience and attention skills, as the chronological timeline goes haywire, and the story takes off in a different direction, which begins to amp up as the characters (and the narrative) start to get a little crazy. If nothing else, the film is worth sticking around for the last ten minutes, where the directors (there are 3 of them?) seem to have thrown the rules of filmmaking out the window and conceived of something that really cannot be explained, but is totally unexpected and amazingly insane and was a huge part of why I went back to watch the whole movie over again. And then again. And probably will again.

So would I suggest this movie to everybody I know? Probably not. At least not to anyone looking for cheap scares and mindless entertainment. There are plenty of other places to find that. But if you're looking for a dark, haunting, cerebral sort of experience, then you should definitely check this one out.