dazednconfuuzed8

So they pretty much milked every possible reference to the original film they could, but I can't really blame them for that, and as a huge fan of the franchise, I'm willing to overlook the downfalls and cheesiness that the film sometimes dips into. Call me a sell-out for nostalgia, but when that ol' music comes on and were getting ready to enter the park, I was having a moment with my 6 yr old self. JP was the first movie I ever saw in a theater, and it changed my life lol. I KNOW many other viewers had to feel at least some of that, esp the folks from my generation.

I don't want to give details away, but TRUST me, they haven't given away every exciting moment and set-piece in the trailers as is so often the case nowadays. There's quite a few interesting surprises and callbacks that had me giddy. At 28 yrs old I don't often have reason to be giddy, but this movie had me from beginning to end. The 3D was worth it, very well done. Bet it was even cooler in IMAX, but where I live the only IMAX theater in the state is almost 3 hrs away unfortunately..

Is this movie on par with the first film? No, it isn't. But nothing was ever going to top or equal JP. The other sequels didn't, and this is a huge step up from JP3. So, haters gunna hate.... but I personally enjoyed this for what it was. Enjoy.

I'll mention first that while I've heard of the Marble Hornets series, I went into this film with only a small notion of the slenderman mythos, as I've never watched any of the Marble Hornets videos. So this movie will be rated and reviewed as a standalone, from someone with no background in Marble Hornets.

"Always Watching" certainly didn't redefine the FF genre, although it at least had an excellent built-in explanation as to why the cameras continue to role even once things get bad. The editing, especially for the first 30 mins of the movie is pretty bad, as another person noted. That improved quite a bit in the second half of the movie IMO. I recognized all the leads, from one show or another, and they did well, though their characters weren't really fleshed out, and some of the dialogue was kinda lame. The premise was good, but the payoff wasn't really there. I see what they tried to do, they just didn't stick the landing..

Is this movie scary? Not really. You pretty much spend almost all of the movie looking the for the guy to show up lol. Maybe I missed him in a cpl scenes, but I thought he was kinda under-used... So much creep factor there, why not use it? But I was, admittedly, quite engaged with the movie throughout, and it gave my nerves a lil jolt from time to time.

I wish they had gotten more into why this stuff was going on, how it was going on, etc. All and all, I wouldn't pay much money to see it, I'm sure it will land on Netflix eventually. But if you like FF, or slenderman stuff, you may enjoy it.