Afflicted

We picked this movie to watch last night expecting to laugh at the usual hand held cam nonsense but wow what a surprise. Excellent acting and a truly ingenious script and premise for a movie, it was very good. You guy in to the characters from the start with one being afflicted by a life threatening illness and the other going with his friend around the world to ensure he is safe. Well their trip to Paris blows that out of the window as Derek goes off with the French girl Audrey. They let him have the hotel room to his self and try to prank him the next morning by rushing in to the room. They find a dazed, battered, bruised and bloodied Derek who has no recollection of the previous night. Derek and Cliff move on to Italy and that's when it starts going crazy. Funny, scary, unsettling and ultimately compelling it was a cool movie.

Afflicted is a found footage genre movie (if there is such a thing). Personally I am always suspicious with these types of movie. The paranormal activities, and blair witches are just about some cheap thrills and no plot, although they can be mildly entertaining. Afflicted is nothing like that. You aren't going to watch some found footage movie, with jump scares and no plot. This one actually has a story and an ending. (Yes, it doesn't just end with the camera falling on the floor). The plot appears to be quite simple. Two best friends go touring through Europe and document the entire journey on camera to post it on their website. One of them, stars to become afflicted with some sort of illness, and that's all I can reveal without spoiling. Although, storywise, it doesn't bring anything new and fresh, it grabs the viewer, and keeps you interested until the very end, with some competent acting. The special effects are very well done, and that's not considering it's a low budget movie, the effects are real good. All things considered, Afflicted is a surprisingly good movie, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants 90 minutes of entertaining and competent fim making.

I enjoy a good flick, and am particularly pleased when it is a low-budget passion project. The Afflicted meets those marks. While the film has some elements that have been done before, such as bad things happening while traveling abroad and the "found footage" angle, Lee and Prowse did a good job adding new elements and keeping it somewhat fresh. Compared to many low (and high) budget horror films, the actors did a fine job and the special effects/stunts were actually believable. I also enjoyed the mystery element to the story that keeps you wondering throughout, but I think I would've preferred a little more explanation as to what happened at the beginning of the film.

All-in-all, a good, simple story that kept me engaged throughout. I look forward to seeing more from these guys.

I have seen an obscene amount of Horror films and a crazy amount that are Cam. I expected this film to be similar to Paranormal Activity - The Marked One which i found to be okay, nothing too special... But immediately from the start realised it was to take a much different tone, which not only was new and fresh for the Cam Horror genre but also to films in general. The film feels fun, fresh and upbeat from the start with a good use of SFX showing a real 'College Movie' vibe then quickly becomes engrossing and dark with plot twists and turns that offer something new to this over produced genre.

Would Recommend

Almost 15 years since "The Blair Witch Project" pretended to document an ill-fated journey into the woods, its impact is felt more deeply than ever. The found footage horror genre technically pre-dated the digital filmmaking boom by nearly two decades (with 1980's "Cannibal Holocaust") but the age of user-generated footage, when everyone with a smartphone has one trigger finger ready to hit record, has made the device too ubiquitous for its own good.

The two actors performances are credible enough to legitimize the terror, only stumbling when they glare directly into the camera and profess their fears (a "Blair Witch" cliché that has run its course, the confessional moment is the worst example of overstatement). Derek's ensuing plight across the continent, in which he scales buildings and nimbly evades various countries' police forces, suggests "Cloverfield" by way of "American Werewolf in London," but lacks the same wry, self-deprecating humor of the John Landis classic. Instead, directors Proswe and Lee established a macabre scenario and then uses it as an excuse to run wild with the production values, piling up a series of impressive chase scenes and showdowns involving characters with the powers to scale buildings and hurl bodies across the room. It's a superficial delight to watch "Afflicted" gradually ramp up its effects work, and while the scares don't sink too deep, the movie offers surefire confirmation of found footage horror's latest stage.