Unlisted Owner

The only positive thing I can say about this found footage movie is that, compared to most found footage movies, the acting in this one is not terrible. Now, the negatives. First, the characters, especially the two alpha male guys, were so obnoxious, such douchebag pricks, that I could not wait until they died. Second, the movie was a bit more than 3/4 over before anything "horror" happened. That's right, the vast majority of this film is just some immature pricks yelling at one another. Finally, when something happens, it is not supernatural or even scary in any way. Third, we never find out who the villain is, which is so unsatisfying, given that I had to sit through most of the movie before any action happened. There was no character development, no plot development, no mystery, no build up to a climax, no denouement: just a bunch of hillbilly, immature pricks cursing and yelling. The most horrifying thing about this movie is that I wasted a portion of my life to watch it.

Please will people stop making these hopeless attempts at movies. "Found footage" is such a feeble cover for lack of skills in editing, script, lighting and directing. In the same scene the f-word can be bleeped out while not being bleeped out just 1 minute later. Even the cheapest compact camera's from 10 years ago had OIS. Just an annoying mess resplendent with battery indicators and flashing "Rec" indicators and distracting artificial pixelation somehow being recorded. I guess everyone that worked on this movie and their parents voted this to above a 3 star. Not close to having tension, suspense or horror. It would take a very special person to feel engrossed and invested in this cacophony. I should point out I never saw every minute of this; after 15mins of nothing but what was scripted or unscripted (improv dahling) rambling (without any character pinning) I skipped to the 30th. The only reason I would say to watch this is to see how all the excuses of pathetic movie making are covered up in the "found footage" genre.

So much could go wrong with these type of microbudget found footage type of scary movies First of all the acting is better than expected though couple of characters very annoying after some time. The script was quite okay on the offset but took a long while before anything interesting happened to get that essential fix of thrilling excitement. Guess that's where the movie fails to deliver. Last act was not that great but i have seen worse before so it leaves me with mixed feelings and give it still a 5 out of 10 at most.

Title: Unlisted Owner

Format: Amazon Prime Language: English Released: 2013

Director: Jed Brain

Starring: Chris Ash, Levi Atkins, Chloe Benedict

A found footage film...still here? I know, I can't stand them either, however, I have seen one or two that end up being good, so I still watch them in the hope I can uncover a gem.

Is this one? Well, yes and no to be truthful. The debut film from Writer, Director and Actor, Jed Brain, he does try and approach this flooded sub-genre with fresh ideas. Most found footage films are shot in a standard movie format, not making them believable as they are meant to mirror the everyday life of the person shooting them, instead they end up covering months at a time over the course of the film.

'Unlisted Owner', doesn't do this. It follows a group of 'friends' over the course of a day, from loading a pickup to the bloody finale. For me, this really helps us get under the skin of the people in the film, to understand them to a better degree than other films in the genre.

I'm jumping ahead a little, so back to the start. The film opens to a family moving into their new home, they are quickly taken down by an unseen killer, setting up the plot of the film. From here we meet your hapless friends getting ready for a camping trip.

This is where the biggest problem for me starts. Now, being English, the word 'friend', may mean something different over here in the UK, than in the U.S.A, but I can not understand how this group call themselves friends. They are constantly at each other's throats and even say several times throughout the film how much they hate each other.

In particular, the two women were so unlikable and annoying, I was hoping they where killed off first in a justifiable gruesome way. Yet for every bad there is a good. The interaction between these different people seems believable if you consider them mates at best and not friends. Add to this the acting wasn't bad either, making the viewer believe these people could easily exist. In turn, this made the finale quite a tension filled jaunt through the murder house as one by one, they fell. In my opinion we could have done with getting to the murder house a lot faster than we did, as again (in my opinion), the set up wore out its welcome, mainly due to those annoying girls.

So, will it redefine the found footage sub-genre, no, but to his credit, Jed Brain does try something new and almost pulls it off. With a little tidying up in the editing studio this could and should have been much better. Yet, as it is, its not bad and it is the first time in a long time I've made it to the end of a found footage film, so that for me, counts for a lot.

As a cohost of Collateral Cinema Movie Podcast, I watched and analyzed this film when we covered it on our most recent Indie Movie Review mini-episode! That being said, the first thing that stuck out to me was the attachment to realism. This is allowed by Jed Brian's use of the found-footage genre, and I think he fully achieves what he is trying for. However, the problem here is, the genre as a whole has been completely oversaturated, so I wouldn't say there is anything new or innovative here... and yet, I see a remarkable potential. With limited resources as a first-time writer, director, and starring actor-which is why we can admit the found-footage genre was actually a good choice, despite its flaws-Mr. Brian was able to pull off a thoroughly convincing narrative. And the way that narrative itself flows, and accompanying it the ratio of exposition to action, is where the twist ultimately derives from, although I dare not spoil that for you by being more descriptive. In fact, go watch it! With an Amazon Prime membership the movie is free to watch at the time of the writing, so I encourage everyone to give it a shot, and see what I mean when I say that Jed Brian has a future in the film industry... just with content that's maybe a little more original.

TL;DR: While this movie suffers from an oversatured genre, these problems aren't to blame on the directing or writing, and in fact, utilizing what resources were available, it's easy to see potential in its creator, and what he could do in a different kind of movie, and it's really worth checking out!

TL;DRTL;DR: Read title. And seriously, go check it out!

If you're interested in my and my cohosts' full thoughts, you can check out Collateral Cinema's short, spoiler-free review/analysis on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Podbean, Spotify, YouTube, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts!