Found Footage 3D

You've got your cast: jerk husband, wife, ingenue, dork, camera dude, and big bearded pig: who set out to make a found footage movie. Their hook is that their movie will be the first FF production to be in 3D. Simple enough, but confusing for the audience, as the title makes this movie sound like a documentary or even a class on making 3D found footage movies: and the actual movie itself is not in 3D (not the version I saw, anyway).

I'm no actor, and I know that it's easy to critique (tear apart) work that people have put effort into, BUT I'd have to rate this cast a 60%-70%. The jerk husband character can be too loud and showy and the ingenue is annoyingly young and innocent, but she's used sparingly so it's not really an issue. My teeth itch, however, when the jerk husband and dork director characters argue, and when the jerk husband later gets into a physical "fight" with the camera guy. That fistfight was so obviously staged it made me think of that scene from Napoleon Dynamite where he has to feed Tina the llama (for some reason). But the actors are all good enough, and this movie does feature a few legit scares.

There're some pacing issues: the scene where they go to the bar could probably have been cut, for example, but I suppose it adds tension. Found footage movies usually benefit from a slow build.

But the whole concept, and even title, hurts the film. The camera crew set out to make a found footage horror movie set in a cabin in the woods (yeah) and wind up, themselves, in an actual found footage movie. Right. Maybe the concept would work better if not for the title. It should've been called "The Specter Tapes" or something; I don't know. "Found Footage 3D" and the entire premise is too meta, too on the nose; leaves too little to the imagination. But I do enjoy this subgenre of horror, so I don't regret seeing it. So there.

The movie was pretty entertaining at first, with many ironic moments about found footage movies. Then the ending really dragged, and it was so tedious just to finish it.

This is a film very much in the spirit of "The Blair Witch Project", the low budget effort that can properly be said to have started the genre. Quite likely it has a semi-improvised script, at least it certainly gives that impression.

A small group of film-makers - professionals but far from A List - go out into the sticks to make the first ever found footage film in 3D. Almost from the very beginning, things start going wrong in their isolated cabin, leaving aside the fact that there are already certain tensions within the group, personal and sexual. The first question that must be asked is, this is a set up, right, most likely by the guy whose idea it was? Once that has been answered with a resounding no, things can only get worse, and they do.

Not a lot more can be said, except that the viewer can expect a gorefest. The people behind this actual film deserve A for effort if not originality. The special effects are thematic, but don't expect to come away either satisfied or comprehending.

As the title of the film might suggest, this is a critique of the found footage genre and makes some good points. Howeverost of the meta commentary comes at the cost of making an actually enjoyable movie.

There are some points that stand out but it probably would have worked better if they had leaned into comedy a bit more than drama. Satire generally works by lampooning its subject so trying instead to show what would happen in real life is a confusion that doesn't come across right. Clearly there are parts where they leave the camera behind because that's what would really happen, but it doesn't exactly make for compelling watching. Instead you could have used comedy to justify ridiculous circumstance and still have made things entertaining and self aware.

Overall this isn't a terrible movie, it just muddies its point and labours over trying to both saturise and honestly critique the genre to the point where it is less enjoyable than it could be. Probably best to be watched academically rather than for fun.

I saw the 2D version but any film must be told by the story, not the 3D gimmick.

The cast is fine, the acting is fine. The problem is there is really no script. While everyone talks about making a GREAT FF film, they have no original idea. The script/story takes place in a cabin. Um, what? They think filming in 3D will make all the difference...but there is ZERO effort on their part to use the silly 3D gimmicks. You never hear or see them trying to make 3D scenes; throwing or poking stuff at the camera. It's so odd because that would have been fun/funny to see.

Instead, there is some bad, splotchy CGI of a black ink stain wandering around. There is no backstory every given about this particular haunted cabin other than a guy killed his wife and left the body in the lake...or was that in the script? Regardless, it's never mentioned again, no watery ghost, etc.

So we're left with them shooting scenes from a movie that has no plot we're able to follow, accidents happen that...are not explained or talked about much. Why does a shovel fall on a cast member? Why does one women get bloody scratch marks on her arm? Why do they go out drinking at a bar and when they return home and find some things "wrong" in the cabin? These are ll tropes used in FF films--and basic horror films--so it's clear they didn't even TRY to shake things up. The climax also is just what we expect, running in the woods in the dark, a final lunge at the camera by the monster.

Because the acting is fine, I was engaged the first 40 mins but then sensed that was it; the premise was set up but they weren't going to do anything but make the same old same old FF film. Which is fine--I like them, but if you're going to boast about making some new and different, that deliver. Or at least try to. Beginning with the title.