The Den

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.

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.

The Den takes a lot of modern references such as social media quirks and web cam gimmicks to produce a unique kind of found footage film. It's similar to series of creepy pastas on internet, and even for those who are barely familiar with the technology, the film should be relatable. Unfortunately, the conclusion isn't as strong as the set-up and some of the plots developments are too far fetch.

Elizabeth (Melanie Papalia) is a student who investigates the behavior of web cam users in a website called The Den. It's a random streaming chat site, and just like the actual thing it has a lot of dubious people. Elizabeth begins to see a lot of strange things, including potential snuff video. It escalates very closely into her real life. The premise holds a good advantage since viewers will be familiar with this set-up.

Acting is pretty good for the lead, as Melanie Papalia plays the role of modern young woman who relies on this tech. For most part she seems identifiable, and the film is at its strongest at first act. Cleverly using bits of well-known jokes or internet sensation, it grabs attention very quickly. The horror aspect is handled very well as it's based on viral spooky stories or clips which already proved effective to attract attention.

Problem starts to show at latter half as the threat is looking very omnipotent. It's almost ludicrous how it can get to Elizabeth with near supernatural tech wizardly and seemingly unworldly power. The mainstay of found footage flaws reveal themselves later on as the visual gets muddled and slow, the vexing frame rate drop is real. It also doesn't make sense why there are conveniently placed cameras, especially in first person view.

The Den resembles internet sensation it's based on, interesting at first but stumble with glitches afterward. The material is spread too thinly and the last act falters, considering the film is fairly short it could've wrapped up nicer. If not for anything, The Den has a few good internet viral scares and they are better than most found footage has to offer.

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.

Elizabeth "Liz" Benton (Melanie Papalia) convinces her Research Advisor Sally (Saidah Arrika Ekulona) to research every type of strangers in the social media "The Den" to her project. She has conversation also with her boyfriend Damien Clark (David Schlachtenhaufen), her friends Max (Adam Shapiro) and Jenni (Katija Pevec) and her pregnant sister Lynn Benton (Anna Margaret Hollyman) through The Den while collecting data for her work. Liz does not note that her computer is hacked by a stranger without webcam, and hers records Damien and she while having sex. Out of the blue, the stranger shows a gagged woman being murdered to Liz and she shows the video to Sgt. Tisbert (Matt Riedy). Although he says that the video appears to be genuine, he tells her that most of them are fake, and he does not have resources to investigate. Liz asks Max to hack the user, but he says that he is probably using VPN making impossible to track him down. Soon Damien, Jenni and Elizabeth are abducted by hooded men and brought to a derelict building in a junkyard. Who are they and why are they so interested in Liz and her friends?

"The Den" (2013) is a good movie using the terrible found-footage style with a good plot about the dangers of social media and hackers. The story follows the graduate student Elizabeth that proposes to research users of social media to analyze their behaviors online and stumbles upon a gang of filmmakers of snuff films. She is hacked and endangers her sister and friends. The plot has creepy and gruesome moments, and how the police is not prepared to handle cybernetic crimes. The hopeless conclusion is sad and will certainly not please some viewers. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Clausura" ("Enclosure")