That was just downright awful.
First of all, this is a 'found footage' genre movie, and already there the movie is on a steep downhill. This whole genre is just so worn out and bad that it is literally painful to witness. Strap a camera to a rodent and let it run free and you will have better camera-work compared to many movies in this genre.
Secondly, "Reel Evil" was all stereotypical stuff that has been seen in so many proper horror movies prior to this one, and even in other equally bad 'found footage' movies. As such, it was just a farce to witness and the movie seemed sort of a spoof on itself.
The story is about a group of three friends (yeah, always three) who venture into a rundown and supposedly long abandoned hospital in order to shoot a documentary. Strange and unexplainable things start to happen around them and escalate into something life-threatening. And the documentary-makers quickly learn that they are not alone in this sinister hospital where something dreadful and foul once took place.
Alright, stop it right there. This storyline is so worn down and used so many times that it is a death sentence to a movie to be using that straight from the 'how to make a horror found footage movie' manual. But yet director Danny Draven had to take that formula and milk it for anything left to milk.
The whole movie was a nuisance to bear witness to. There were absolutely no shock effects or scary moments throughout the entire length the movie was running for. The story was cliché and stereotypical, not to mention so predictable that you could watch the movie with your eyes closed and still know what would be happening.
The only thing the movie had working for it, and the only reason for me rating this a 2 out of 10 rating and not a 1 out of 10, is solely because of the ghosts or apparitions in the movie. Well, they weren't scary, not by a long shot, but at least an effort was put into making them appear scary. And for some odd reason these ghosts always had to approach any camera in the vicinity and then show some kind of strange - supposedly scary - face once they were right in front of the camera.
And what went through the directors head when he opted to put in that cartoonish scene where a guy was running through doorways along a long corridor? He would go into one doorway on one side of the corridor, but would come out of a whole different doorway and not necessarily on the same side of the corridor. That was just so stupid it was laughable. It is something you see in old cartoons and sit-coms from the late seventies or mid-eighties. It was so bad.
As for the acting in this 'found footage' movie, well, they were doing good enough jobs, however they were struggling a losing battle against a script that was poorly written and executed, a storyline that had been bled dry by other movies, and also the fact that this was a 'found footage' movie.
But at least a thumbs up for the people involved in this project for making it see the light of day. I just regret letting it see the light of day through my DVD player.
