There Are Monsters

This was the very last movie at Glasgow Frightfest 2015. And quite a good one to end it all.

The bad: This is, I assume for budgetary reasons, a found footage flick. Unfortunately this means quite a lot of shaky cam. Really, really shaky. Way too zoomed in, and shaky. Like, Blair Witch with Parkinson's. I was literally squirming in my seat hoping whoever was filming would just. zoom. out. And ever so often the movie cuts to these just wild zoomed in shaky parts, where you see absolutely nothing but blur. OK, got the bad out of the way!

The Good: The good thing is that not all the filming is shaky, and pretty much all the actors did a good job. The movie was well paced and not boring (even after watching 5 movies before it, as this one was last). The characters are likable, and seem to have pretty good chemistry. There are some laughs to be had, too.

The Scary: This movie actually gave me chills a couple of times! Kudos. Some of the sound effects, and visual effects, are pretty darn creepy. And a couple of the jump scares are very effective. Pretty cool. I especially liked how some of the creepy parts gets you thinking: was that actually a creepy effect, or was it my mind playing tricks on me?

All in all it was pretty entertaining, and very good for a found footage movie. Good movie to see with a couple of friends, if you have those.

There Are Monsters is basically found footage meets Invasion Of The Body Snatchers - and that's no bad thing.

Four friends are filming a documentary about school children (or something like that) when during their filming they begin to notice odd, subtle behaviours in people. The subtle gradually becomes more in your face and outlandish as it becomes apparent that these people aren't actually people at all - they used to be - but now they have been taken over by forces unknown. The four friends eventually become convinced something is very wrong; and as society crumbles around them they end up fighting for their very survival.

There Are Monsters is an above average found footage horror. The acting, plot and pacing of the film are all very good. And the spin on the well worn found footage path that people are gradually being taken over by something unknown brings a freshness to this often stale sub genre.

The one flaw that's apparent throughout is the overuse of shakey cam. At times it's really difficult to actually know what's going on due to the camera flying all over the place, and there are one or two blackout scenes too when you can't see anything. I know this adds to the realism, but at times the shakey cam is so rough it's difficult to watch.

In the main though this is a very good example of how to produce a good found footage film, and with so many bad examples out there, this is a definite diamond in the rough.

First, I like the idea of body snatcher monsters and it was executed very effective in this movie. The characters, tension building, subtle effects, it all works here... but... what on Earth happened with camera?! Such a good movie completely ruined by what I can only call amateurish shaky blurry camera work. It's not only irritating, as the story/writing is actually engaging, but also quite uncomfortable to watch. Why oh why, you had it and you blew it completely!

...but the overdone shaky and out of focus cam makes it pretty much unwatchable at times.

Other than that, this is a very decent "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers"-type remake with a lot going for it. It's a shame someone didn't point out that the shaky cam was just absurdly over-the-top and get the camera operator to hold it a bit steadier - like virtually anybody else using a hand-held video camera would.

This is a frustrating film. The premise, whilst not original, is good, and there are some good moments of creepiness here. But it's let down by some appalling problems in the execution, most notably the cinematography.

Certainly, they were going for a particular style. The protagonists are low-rent documentary film makers, so the whole thing is filmed in a found-footage style. But no documentary film makers would shoot their footage like this; almost every single shot in the whole movie is a tight close-up on someone's face. Literally, from their eyebrows to their bottom lip. I am not exaggerating. There are virtually no mid-shots - there might actually be none - and I only saw one wide shot in the entire film. And during every close up of every face, the camera sways, and goes in and out of focus. It is truly nauseating.

At the very end of the film, there is a wide shot, and it's really effective. But for the rest of the film, all you get are tight close-ups on the face of the person speaking. It doesn't matter whether they're having a group conversation around a table, walking around a room and conversing with people, or running for their lives. It's extremely tight crops the entire way. It must have been shot at 200mm. It is horrible beyond description, and leaves you with no sense of place or geography.

Incredibly, things get even worse when our characters are running around in the chaos, because now we get zoomed in shots of nothingness, out-of-focus blur, and the camera inexplicably exhibits bizarre colour artifacts and other dropped-in After Effects styles, as if the cameras somehow begin to fail if you run whilst holding them, which makes it even more incomprehensible.

Such a shame. They could have invested a few dollars into an old 1970s 28mm lens, and improved this movie immeasurably.

The characters are, I'm afraid, another problem. They're just too stupid to live. Imagine if Brad Pitt, at the start of World War Z, saw that craziness erupt in downtown Philadelphia, and then just shrugged his shoulders and said "well, I'm sure it's nothing". That's this bunch of clowns in a nutshell.

Like I say, this could have been great. There are hints of greatness, but it's all totally spoiled by the awful execution. The thing that annoys me is that it's not a budget issue, but issues that could have been easily resolved at no extra expense.

I also just have to mention one bit where a character has to look out for threats using a smartphone, by taking photos using the flash to illuminate a dark space. Firstly, I'm pretty sure that if a smartphone has a flash, it can be used as a flashlight. You don't need to take photos with your flash, and then wait several seconds for the photo to appear on your screen, you can simply use the torch mode to look for threats. Secondly, they're LED based, and don't make the big build-up whining sound that camera flashguns from the 70s and 80s used to do, something apparently lost on the makers of this film. Bizarre.

Avoid, unless you're a budding film-maker and want to see how not to shoot a movie.