June 9

I cant even rate this. My heart is still beating fast.

"June 9". A group of friends from school film themselves doing pranks in their local area, upping the ante each time. The date is shown to be June 4 when the movie opens, and, even after a few very scary encounters, the ring leader of the group pushes the friends further and further down the rabbit hole of risk, inching slowly towards the inevitable "June 9", where their story culminates to a rip roaring demise for all.

After waiting for 6 years for this movie to get a proper release, I have finally added it to my ever growing collection of horror and genre films. This is maybe one of the rarest found footage films out there and its definitely one to own. Support indie filmmakers. With that being said, "June 9" plays out just as I'd thought. This movie was filmed in 2008 so it has that old school feel to it a bit which only helps the authenticity of the film. Done on a very low budget, its still basically a success, though this movie does move at a slow pace. I recommend this movie to found footage fans and collectors because otherwise, it may be ragged on.

Haha just kidding this one aint good. Only fun to watch with friends. No scares, lack of set up, just nothing characters dicking around. Doesn't feel like a movie.

The scares are largely non-existent, there is no mystery, the violence is muted and dated, and the cast is a bunch of nobodies with nothing to do. That said, what I did enjoy about this movie was watching the cast. This movie is set in the summer of 1999 and is surprisingly accurate in capturing how it felt hanging out as a teenager around that time. I saw a lot that reminded me own teenage years in the 90s so for that I don't feel like I totally wasted my time. For anyone else outside this specific age range though, this is a hard pass.

JUNE 9 is the date five high school kids disappeared in Boston Mills, Ohio, a place also known as "Helltown". The movie chronicles, in the form of found footage, the few days leading up that date, when the group repeatedly visited the locale to carry out vandalism and other shenanigans, and the aftermath.

I can understand the allure of using a plot device where a group of losers led by a budding sociopath eventually get their comeuppance for all their stupid pranks.

It is actually quite a clever concept:

we may feel some catharsis at their fate, but at the same time, the punishment is so out of proportion, and those who mete it out so nonchalant about their evil, that we cannot allow ourselves to feel catharsis. Thus, the movie leaves the viewer with mixed emotions, a perfect state for the story to remain with us, uneasy and unforgotten, reinforced by the creepy aftermath footage.

The granddaddy of found footage horror, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980) operated on a similar concept (except that the group of main characters there did much more evil things) and implemented it much more successfully than this film.

Unfortunately, the execution in this film was lacking. The camerawork was not great. It was difficult for me to relate to the characters and thus care for them. The movie spent way too much time on their dumb antics, which only increased my annoyance with these characters and made them less relatable. Instead of starting out on June 4th, and giving us a daily log of their visits until the final date, it should have started later. That they visited the same place 6 times in a row stretched a bit of credibility and was simply too much, plotwise. The ending was swift and anticlimactic, trading protracted suspense and horror in the final moments for eeriness of the aftermath.

Hardcore found footage horror fans may still find this enjoyable because it does give a vicarious experience of a group of wayward high school kids that feels authentic, and the liveliness of the group stands in stark contrast to the quietness of the aftermath. But I think most others will be turned off by how much time the movie spends on documenting their inane stunts.