Skew

I first saw Skew at the Mississauga Film Festival. This is a psychological thriller/horror film that has found a new voice in its "found footage" sub-genre. Skew kept me wondering and waiting for more. The acting is good. The character of Eva is especially strong, haunting the audience with her wide eyes. The effects are subtle and work well in the grainy home video 4x3 ratio. Sometimes the scenes felt a little too long, but there were enough scares that I was compelled to see it again when I was in Manhattan for the Manhattan Film Festival. This second time I concentrated on the story and picked up on clever plot points that I missed or didn't seem to matter on my first viewing. Pay attention, this film is coming from a new direction that will side-swipe you.

Skew is yet another hand-held POV horror in a similar vein to The Blair Witch Project and its countless found footage imitators. On this occasion, the person behind the camera is Simon (Rob Scattergood), who experiences disturbing occurrences while documenting his road trip with friends Rich (Richard Olak) and Eva (Amber Lewis): while peering through the viewfinder, Simon witnesses strange visual distortions that seem to predict the subject's imminent death.

Told at a very leisurely pace, with the camera even resting on inanimate objects or total blackness for minutes on end, Skew is definitely a test of one's patience at times; however, commendable performances and sporadic moments of well-handled weirdness keep the viewer watching, as does the hope of a satisfying denouement. It's rather frustrating then that, by the end of proceedings, several issues are still left unresolved, most notably the true nature of the supernatural phenomenon and the fates of several characters.

On occasion, a little ambiguity can work in a film's favour, but in this instance, after such an arduous and often uneventful haul, it only serves to irritate.

N.B. A little detective work here on IMDb has since enabled me to better understand the director's intentions, but when an in-depth explanation from those involved is necessary in order to appreciate a film, then it only seems fair to call it a failure.

In the wake of found footage greats like Paranormal Activity, Grave Encounters, REC., Cloverfield etc. a movie like Skew automatically makes you have high expectations for it and be extra critical of it but I can thankfully say that Skew came pretty darn close at being in their league. The movie does have a pretty slow build up introducing us to three friends Simon, Rich and Eva on a road trip to a wedding, everything seems fine and dandy but tension soon builds when Simon starts seeing strange and unexplained images in his video camera that he brings along that makes faces of strangers that they encounter on the trip distorted and soon after tragic accidents involving the strangers that they meet occur. This movie has suspense throughout and an involving story filled with twists that will have you guessing and scratching your head til the very end but that is the film's major problem that there is more questions than answers and is one of those films that makes you come up with your own conclusions which I hate and is a shame because this movie had so much potential but the story seems unfinished. There are a few scares here and there and a lot of creepy and chilling scenes but nothing major enough to make you lose sleep over it but this movie is mostly story/character and suspense driven but then again an unknown movie with unknown actors and a limited budget it's pretty darn impressive and a gem even though it needs a little bit more polishing and fixing up the loosen ends. Overall it's like The Blair Witch Project meets Shutter meets Final Destination without the gore meets Tape but without any true, memorable scares and too many plot holes it makes you think what could of been especially with an intriguing and unsettling premise but it's definitely worth a look with patience and an open mind and low expectations. 6.6 out of 10

This is a low budget horror film. Plain and simple. But man, is it good. I never even heard of this film until I read some reviews about it on the net. Some good, some bad. So I was a bit hesitant to watch it but was pleasantly surprised. The thing that grabbed me was how smart it was. It didn't dumb things down for the audience and that's what I liked about it. It really made you think. It has an ending that leaves you hanging so I did some research and am sure I figured it out. The other thing that is pretty cool is the twist on this found footage thing. Skew is definitely not a found footage film. I went in thinking it was but when you hit a certain point in the film (which I can't really say as it may spoil it), you realize it isn't. First impulse was to say this film blew it because it doesn't follow the rules of found footage (like music) but when you realize it's not, then it totally makes sense. The film is slow and the scares are sparse, but that's not what this is about. It's about getting freaked out and being nervous - which is exactly what I felt. It's not fast-paced like some of the new horror films (which quite frankly aren't scary). It goes back to the route of what's scary and I like that. Don't be thrown off by the haters out there. The film is good and well worth your time if you want to turn your brain on. If not, go see something more mindless.

I have been on a kick of watching found-footage horror films recently, and after watching what I thought was all I could find on Netflix, I happened to stumble upon this title. The picture was littered with rave reviews, which was enough to convince me that it was at least worth checking out.

I enjoyed the first two Paranormal Activity movies (haven't seen the third yet), The Last Exorcism annoyed me, and I don't even know what to write about Grave Encounters. My biggest complaint with these types of movies is that there is too much that is similar - I realize that there is only so many ways you can go, but there's no need to have the lead character who wants the "documentary" to go on no matter what, a swinging chandelier, or someone getting dragged by an unseen force is every found-footage movie about the paranormal.

Boy, was I glad that I watched Skew ... it avoided enough of those recurring elements that it could be considered - dare I say - creative.

The basic plot revolves around three friends on a road trip. The main character is seemingly obsessed with using the video camera, a source of increasing annoyance to his two friends. Along the way, the main character begins to see strange things through the camera, and strange things begin to happen to people who are seen on camera. The tension builds and builds until you are assaulted with a mind-twisting ending that, in my opinion, can stack up against any other twist ending out there.

The acting is much better than most of this genre, the "home movie" element feels very natural, and the few jump scares that are featured a more than enough to get your attention right away. I felt that some scenes dragged on a bit long, but it's not bad enough to truly annoy, and actually adds to the "home movie" feel.

Usually, the use of a musical score and other scary movie tones used on post-production irritate me (if this is truly "found-footage," there wouldn't be any background music, would there?) But in this case, the sounds used at the end amplify the effect ten-fold. And the ending - WOW. There will be those that won't be able to figure it out, and I admit that I am one of them. But the movie was that good that I am looking forward to watching it again to figure it out.

For fans of this genre, I highly recommend this movie, even if only to see something that is a little different. If you're not already a fan of the genre, this movie won't make you one. But that being said, this is one of the better movies I've seen the last couple of days, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head yet.