blatherskitenoir

Holy motion sickness, batman. If unsteady camera work makes you ill, skip this movie. I know they were trying to go for "authentic" found-footage, but they erred on the side of far too much shaky-cam running and it got to the point where I was seasick and honestly baffled (and getting increasingly annoyed) by how much time the cameras were out of focus.

Anyways, we watch as a group of ghost-investigating youtube vloggers head towards some little-known abandoned haunted house they NEVER give any background on, but somehow believe will be their biggest break and best video ever. We are then treated to a pretty classic haunted house story, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

There are some glaringly odd choices which reveal the budget and the makers' lack of experience/ nuance. Such as the vloggers walking to the 'derelict' house on an obviously-just-mowed-and-maintained trail, and the house being absolutely, immaculately clean, with fresh linens and pristine, well cared for, potted flowers; the artistic flop of having all of the characters use huge, bulky cameras with different resolutions instead of their phones; an inability to get the viewers to like and care for the characters; some plot gaps; and a fumbling of the ending typical for this genre.

But there are some genuinely creepy moments and the acting and editing are better than normal for this kind of movie. If this were just a freebie on Prime or found on a random TV channel with completely unknown actors, people would think it was pretty good. But the 'hollywood' hype and expectation for what is, essentially, a self-produced, amateur movie, are likely leading to many finding it disappointing.

So despite the flaws, this slots in as a solid-enough example of its type and a decent option for someone wanting a low-budget, classic-style haunted house type movie to watch.

This movie is a fanfiction sequel of Dracula and therefore requires a solid basis of knowledge of the Dracula canon in order to "work" for its audience.

The characters themselves have their own steady convictions they aren't giving up any time soon: the doubts and questions must live in the viewer instead. The audience knows what happened with Dracula. We were essentially "there" ourselves, witnessing the horror, the terror, and the gore of it through various books, films, and TV shows. We got splashed with the blood and felt the seduction first hand.

But here, under the pleasant California sun and tranquil landscape, and all that darkness far away in another movie/lifetime, it's easy to doubt our memories and wonder: how easy would it be to fool us? Could we have made a mistake? Are we the same as those people in the past who were so certain as they burned witches we now know we're innocent?

The flaws of this movie are that you do need this built in background knowledge of the characters or it's just not going to work. You will be bored and lost and wondering why certain things are big deals and who all these people are.

And while it's fairly well done, it feels like they did a great job using Walmart acrylics, when it could have been a masterpiece in oil grisaille if they'd gotten just slightly better actors/ writers/ directors all around.

A must see for Dracula fans for the very interesting thought experiment, but a pass for everyone else.

So, there's loving and appreciating food, and then there's....whatever this is.

Watch beautifully shot food porn with smooth sweeping around the kitchen and gorgeously lit scenes, as we observe or protagonists use about 10 pots and pans and half a spice rack for every single extremely complicated dish in an era before refrigeration, electricity, and in a kitchen with woodfired stoves and only the most rudimentary of running water. My appreciation for the food was dampened by the thought of the absolute mountain of dirty dishes they must be making.

Listening the pompous Dodin obsessively detail how something MUST be made or else its nuance is utterly destroyed or hearing how he couldn't stand going to be after a not-perfect meal without another 5 courses made the right way made me eyeroll so hard I nearly had a stroke.

These are not people who like food. These are people who have turned the making and consumption of food into a strange lifestyle fetish which rules every aspect of their lives. Their multiple-hours-long dinners feel more like a circle jerk than a meal, and their need to have everything so exact, so precise, or else the whole thing is ruined is more of a control thing than an artistic taste thing.

It just felt exhausting. Good food does not need all of this.