The Den

Here's one of those things that sound stupid if you just describe it, a horror film in the found footage mode entirely assembled via web and phone cams and mostly taking place on a laptop. No it isn't scary, the acting is below par, there's no cinematic craft, the horror plot and climax are atrociously bad, in the end it's no more than a gimmick, but for a while you can see them probing something interesting.

Part of the reason why I think it's so darn clever is in how it threads the practical limitations of what they could do on a tiny budget, around narrative limitations of how much story they could deliver within the former, around broader meta- limitations of how much is possible for a viewer to know as true, going from meagre means to the broad, perplexing questions.

Inspiration after all is nourished and energized by limits, self-imposed or from necessity like a painter has to puzzle about how he can enliven and give depth to a twodimensional surface. It's easy to think of so many things to do with a budget in the millions, which is why unconstrained imagination fizzles out, but how much can you do with just a camera?

Here it's about a viewer in the midst of images, a girl doing a behavioral study over online chat services, who like us is looking to surmise possible pattern and truth; the constraint is that we can only watch.

A lot of the time we stare into a computer environment. Jarring to see in a film but still the groundwork through which we know so many other things these days. We see through a webcam at the girl in her apartment so we acquire a sense of real time. But then things are shifted around. Videos that we were parsing as taking place now are suddenly paused. We connect to random chatters, but have no way of knowing how much is real even within the small confines of the screen. Some of them are pulling pranks, there's a startling Russian roulette scene that ends with bloodshed and everyone laughing.

Among all this is footage of a possible murder.

So this could have been great, about our inability to be grounded in a horizon of shifting images and context; a Blowup for the tumblr age. We could swim far deeper into the videos, form more ambiguous connections, play and replay edges and details, tune in and out of a far stranger parade of the visual strangeness that is taking place out there, some of it feigned, some bizarre or exciting, even stupidity or crass sex would have its place, some strangely poetic in spite of all else.

So they constrained themselves in a powerful way, but halfway through they axe all that and fall back to the convenient limits of tradition: Halloween, Scream 2, Saw and Hostel. It's a throwaway thing by the end which is a shame.

I'll keep this brief but the film was very well executed! Definitely a unique and tasteful take on "found footage" even though this is no where near. The film tells the story from a first person narrative and delivers beautifully! The unfolding of events happens in a timely manner and is the farthest thing from predictable. The set design was phenomenal as well as the acting. I feel like these films have the potential to flop with even the slightest mistakes yet this gem managed to pull through with daring concepts and tie all all ends together nicely. I would recommend this to all horror connoisseur's and am fairly confident you will enjoy the ride. My one and only complaint is the gore. A couple shots were decent but for the most part it was lacking in believability.

Cautionary tale finds a young woman, Elizabeth, receiving a grant to study the habits of webcam chat users. Elizabeth uses a site that allows her to randomly chat with literally anyone on her chat site all over the world.

Things quickly go bad as she and her friends and family are drawn into a nightmare from which they can't escape. I don't want to give anything else away as the reveals are so much fun.

This gruesome found footage horror has almost everything you could ask for in a horror movie. Parts of it almost play as a slasher and it has a lot of scares. I found references to several other popular horror movies and had a great time with this one.

If you are a fan of found footage please give it a try. Most of you won't be disappointed.

This movie is very fresh and modern. I've never seen a horror movie done like this before (webcam style). I honestly don't understand all the negative reviews here. This movie was very fun to watch, made me jump a few times, and the story unwound perfectly. Don't be asking yourself "why is she filming this" - that totally defeats the purpose of storytelling. I feel like too many people might be going into this movie with high expectations? Sure there are some logical errors, but what horror movie is completely devoid of those?

Actually, don't take my review into consideration. Only consider all the other negative reviews and just give this movie a try. Then perhaps you'll like it a bit more.

I feel like the build up was great, the storytelling was fresh, and the ending was clever. The overall plot and ending might be a bit too sick and twisted for some (probably not for the average horror movie goer), but this is actually real life. There are some sick people out there and I feel like this movie made a great commentary about it.

For example, when she calls her friend at her house across town to warn her of the intruder: first of all, COME ON!-- who leaves their back door unlocked for anyone to come in when they weren't even doing anything out back to begin with? Secondly, no one would be so defensive about the warning to get out of the house, coming up with the ever-typical response, "What are you talking about? WHO'S in my house?" If someone got a warning like that, that person would be freaked out immediately and be out of there in a New York minute. To make it even MORE unrealistic, she turns around, worried, when she hears something after the warning over the phone, saying, "Hello?" This one's definitely sub-par.