Evidence

I first saw this in 2012 on a dvd which I own.

Saw this few days back on a fast forward mode to put up a review before i throw the dvd in the trash bin.

With a run time of around 78 mins, almost nothing happens till one hour n later when the action takes place, everything is shot with shaky cam, lots of flickering lights n more than 5 times the screen goes blank. One cannot make out wots going on.

A girl keeps running n screaming n the ending is supposed to be some big revelation.

I don't kno why such movies are made.

I've read a lot of negative comments & seen this movie rated quite poorly, I have to totally disagree. Most importantly, you MUST be a fan of found footage movies to enjoy this film, if you're not - forget it & go watch something else! Yes, at first it comes across as a little derivative of Blair witch, but there is far more to this movie than that. It starts quite slowly, building up that unsettling & creepy feeling that something isn't quite right with the camping trip. The character behind the camera comes across as manipulative and uncaring, a borderline sociopath. As his world starts to unravel, so does his mind and he becomes a real danger to his companions. Part way through, all hell breaks loose, the action ramps up and the campers are plunged into a living hell. The Actors all play their parts well & are believable. The plot is well thought out with unexpected twists and some great shocks & scares. Most importantly for me, this movie does NOT treat you like an idiot, you are left to work out a lot of what is going on yourself. Plenty of times you'll be asking yourself "WTF just happened?" and that's a GOOD thing! I hate it when directors feel they have to explain every little thing to you, like you're stupid! In short, it's Blair Witch meets Chernobyl Diaries, with plenty of genre originality in there too. If you liked either of those movies, you'll like this - I have no hesitation giving it 7 stars.

Kind've your average found footage fare. Starts off your standard hey lets go camping in the woods type film and then of course morphs into the scream and run fest with a couple twists maybe. Prepare for a lot of shaky camera action. Really could compare to a low budget Cloverfield.

There's no arguing that this film is well made with a tight script and good direction, however, as is the way with most found footage genre films, is that they really have to have a "believable" concept and storyline, leastways, the storyline has to be one that doesn't come across as instantly ridiculous.

Evidence nearly gets there, but again, the action packed last 60 minutes are just too cluttered with too much going on and too many questions left unanswered.

The worst part of the found footage genre, are the opening character development scenes - they are either hopelessly painful, or, as is the case in Evidence, seamless and pain free with some good dialogue. Far too many of this genre, fall into the trap of not scripting properly, or, leaving the cast to their own devices and letting them ad lib their way through the scenes. Evidence presents a believable introduction and leaves the viewer at ease quite quickly with the characters and their reasons for the documentary.

As mentioned the last 60 minutes have to understandably pack a lot in, trying to provide explanations whilst still delivering the "money shot" - Evidence gets there, just, with some questions still left hanging.

It's advisable to watch through the credits, as the story continues throughout, why this couldn't be built into the main story, you're left to wonder yourself.

A decent Found Footage film - and it should appeal to most who enjoy the sub genre, just don't go into it with too many high hopes.

6/10

Yet another one of those rare instances where I'm compelled to review a movie because this place unfortunately does not require an IQ test in order to review films here, because if it did, there wouldn't be so many people 1 starring a solid zero budget horror flick because they're confused by...apparently everything. How somebody could be confused by a movie like this is just laughable, it's even more laughable they're not too embarrassed to admit it in a public forum.

As I was watching it it started out as your fairly standard but fairly well paced and creepy FF horror flick, 4 young adults camping in the woods. Weird things happen, sounds in the night. It was all fairly enjoyable but nothing terribly different other then the fact it was horror and enjoyable because lets face it, 99% of horror movies are crap. The pacing is excellent, acting is serviceable, I've seen better and I've seen a lot worse, the atmosphere is excellent, even throwing in a red herring that while completely mundane just really kicks up the creep notch a few. Whoever wrote the script made some great decisions even though it's all very blair witch esque.

I won't spoil it but when you're expecting the standard but acceptable "Everybody dies" ending, the movie completely flips itself on it's head and takes itself in such an unexpected direction and it does it so seamlessly I absolutely couldn't wait to see what happened and where it was going to go. Once things get rolling, like a snowball it just picks up steam leaving the final reel to be pretty much non stop forward momentum.

It's not perfect, there is some spotty acting and in the final reel, the zero budget does show, as the setting isn't very convincing but the shaky camera work and atmospheric lighting do a great job of hiding things.

Don't listen to the haters, if you enjoy found footage, this is seriously a gem. I loved my time with evidence.