Prank

You might like this movie if you enjoyed: The Last Excorcism (2010), Chronicle (2012)

Long Story Short: Three teens plan to take revenge on their bully and document their every move on camera to show the creation of an epic prank. But things get out of hand and soon a fun idea turns into a nightmare.

Review: Prank is entirely filmed with a hand-held camera. The goal of these movies is to work with a low budget but also to create a more authentic atmosphere. We all remember the mother of these movies – The Blair With Project (1998) – and how excited everyone was to see this "real" footage. But the reactions were different: many loved it, some got nauseas, while others got bored or fell asleep. I think End of Watch was the only documentary-style movie that succeeded in what it was trying to do, and Chronicle was okay, too. But as far as the shooting-style goes this movie failed. The concept of Prank is very interesting and shows how far things can actually go when bully victims strike back, but at some point the story was all over the place and became totally unrealistic, but then again, when I think about it, things like that could actually happen. Or not? The acting was decent, the dialogues probably,too, but the constant turning on and off of the camera got on my nerves and I was more annoyed than interested. They definitely should have worked more on the storyline, given the the characters more depth, and made a regular movie. If you like these kind of movies watch it, otherwise I wouldn't really recommend it.

Rating: 4.5/10

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When Pranks go bad - or are they going bad? What was the plan again? Now the main theme of the movie is really an interesting one and it may be the basis why the ratings are all over the place for this. Almost everyone has experienced bullying, either as a victim or as a perpetrator. Most have been the former of course and may feel for the main characters here.

Still liking the theme/story does not make it a better movie than it is. The found footage aspect I guess is supposed to draw some people in (and making it more "personal"), but it also is quite annoying. Like it or not, it is pretty straighforward and you will be able to determine if you want to continue to watch or not ...

Potentially, this film could have been a seriously disturbing flick. The reason it failed in my eyes wasn't because of the hand-held cam, it wasn't even that the acting was extremely dreadful, as it was in fact acceptable enough. When taking on a subject like this, there should be one major goal in the filmmakers minds of the utmost importance, make the story as realistic & believable as possible no matter what the cost, this just didn't occur.

The story consists of three social outcast nerds who, after years of abuse & bullying, decide it's time to stand up & turn the tables on one particular bully named Dax. It's the summer before their senior year and they feel as though maybe, if done correctly, this prank will redeem them in the eyes of their fellow classmates and possibly win the affection of a certain girl who one of them happens to have a crush on. Of course all of this is to be filmed & posted on the internet in hopes of a colossal payday which will finance the other boy's dream of hitting thirteen Star Trek conventions in a row, yes, lame indeed. Which brings me to another area of the film in which I felt was just lazy & completely unimaginative, the cardboard, cookie-cutter characters of the three nerds. They adhered to making them the most clichéd bunch of geeks ever concocted. Which was ultimately forgivable when looking at the big picture and the overall effect in which they were sequentially reaching for, to make the viewer uncomfortable, unsettled and inherently disturbed. A goal that was just not met.

I won't go into specifics of the plot that I felt led to the overall downfall of the film's believability, but I will say that the prank within a prank was not concealed well, it was completely obvious to me and it crippled the film's credibility beyond repair. The plot became completely disjointed & ultimately contradicted the premise set forth in the beginning. I know what they were reaching for here because I've seen it accomplished in other films quite well, where the viewer becomes immersed into the story and is left shocked & disturbed at the film's end because it was in fact so believable, not so in this case. I don't recommend wasting your time with this.

unsubstantiated is the word that came to mind throughout this movie, as well as clichéd. there was very little reason for a camera to be carried by the character through much of the movie. also the actions of the characters were not in keeping with who they were portrayed to be leading up to their actions.

it started out with a bit of promise, but the plot twist could be seen from a mile away.

thin, hackneyed, not at all gripping, with no point, and very little to say about bullying. in the end it was a movie about nothing that meant nothing.

For what it was... not a badly done movie. It suffers not from style/story/effects, but rather the way it was filmed. It is filmed entirely from the point of view of a camera held by the characters in the movie. A big problem with these types of movies is that you end up having characters talking into the camera to replace the dialogue to further the story. This ALWAYS ends up feeling like they're breaking the fourth wall and it takes you out of the situation. This style really needs to be done minimally in my eyes.

I didn't really feel for any of the characters since they are all either horrible or irritating as people go. This diminishes the effectiveness of the ending a bit for me.

If you're looking for a low budget movie to watch its definitely better than a lot, but nothing all that unique here. I felt the murder scenes were all done quite well and looked pretty good. For the most part the acting was adequate also.