Skew

I recently went to Fear Fete Horror Film Festival in Baton Rouge and got to see this little horror film. While most found footage films seem to go in for the shock value, Skew is a refreshing change and actually takes its time to draw the viewer into its warped world of creepiness.

The movie starts off with three friends, Simon and cute couple Eva & Rich, going on a roadtrip. The fact that Simon's girlfriend refuses to join them already sets the tone for some tension which just increases as the trip goes on. One thing is for certain, Simon has issues. Those issues revolve around an unhealthy obsession with a video camera.

The video camera is always running. And while Rich and Eva start running out of patience with their obsessive friend, Simon, evil events start to ruin their roadtrip.

First off, let me start by saying that the acting was great. It felt very real and authentic. They captured that feeling of initial excitement and then inevitable annoyance from being around the same people day in and day out. Especially with Simon due to his paranoid behavior.

The story is simple enough, yet what is happening with the video camera is much more complex. I was trying to figure out what was going on during the entire screening and while I definitely had my own theories, the film does an excellent job of explaining it without knocking you over the head with the answers.

The director gives the audience a lot of credit for being smart. If you don't pay attention the whole time, you just won't get it. The ending will not make sense or it might even make you mad. A second viewing might definitely be necessary for dummies who didn't pay attention the first time. I would love to see it a second time to just make sure that everything pays off correctly.

Though there aren't a ton of scares, the caliber of these scares was good. Especially one certain one which I will not give away (but you'll know it as soon as you see it). The sound and visual effects of the camera were very inventive and while I've seen some of them recreated in other movies lately, it says a lot that since Skew was made in 2005 (not to mention without the Hollywood budget), that this director wasn't copying anyone, but using his creative flair to make a true indie movie.

A valiant first feature debut and I hope to see more from this guy soon.

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.

There really isn't a whole lot to say about Skew. The entire film is a budget PoV single camera piece in the same style as the Blair Witch Project. While the Blair Witch Project did has some generally creepy scenes, Skew really does not. What it does have are a lot of dead scene that drag on and on.

The plot is centered around a camera which seems to be able to mark people who are about to die. Only the film's protagonist and cameraman, Simon, can see the blotches which obscure the faces of those about to be killed. Once it becomes apparent to Simon and his friends that something is terribly wrong with the camera, a considerable portion of the rest of the film are just scenes where Simon's friends try to get him to stop filming and Simon makes really lame excuses to keep filming.

The film isn't even 90 minutes long, but I wasn't even half way through it by the time I started to feel like it was just dragging on way too much. To cap it all off, there's a lame plot twist at the end which most people will see coming from the start of the movie. Yes, it's that predictable.

The only thing that I find interesting about the film is that fact that it's quite short yet drags on and on, making it seem like a much longer movie. I don't know if this originally started off as a short film project, but I feel like that's the only way it ever could succeeded. Cut out a solid 50 minutes and make it a short film. It might be more watchable then.

I just caught this on The Horror Channel and I'm somewhat perplexed what it was doing there . As the threadbare story unravels the possible horror element is people having distorted faces that led me to believe that I might be watching something along the lines of John Carpenter's THEY LIVE where a special camera alerts the viewer to alien infiltration and a scene of violence at the end but I doubt if SKEW is about alien invasions

It's also a very boring film like so many lost footage movies . One can understand low to no budget producers using this format since it requires little money for expensive cameras , film and a star cast but many of us consider the art of cinema as telling a visual story and these type of movies usually revolve around realist situations that are so realistic you could easily make the same film on your I-pod

In short this is very banal seen it all before stuff with guerrilla film standard production values . Unless I missed something it's not a horror movie and I'm very sceptical about other comments stating that you have to watch a couple of times in order to get it . I strongly doubt if I'll be watching this again

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