June 9

A group of a**holes act like a**holes for 75 minutes, then in the last 10 minutes, reap their karma. Roll credits.

It's really that simple, yet it drags on seemingly forever, because there's nothing but a handheld camera filming the a**holes "pranking" victims that one knows nothing about other than that they are victimized by the a**holes. Oh, except that some of the victims are kinda creepy, as they're seen as filmed (by the a**holes) in their homes, standing at attention and staring blankly at nothing in the middle of the night. No explanation for this behavior to be found.

No character or plot development; absolutely no sympathetic characters; the only emotion it stirred in me with its "shocking" ending was relief: It's finally over!

If there's a point to this exercise in tedium, it certainly eluded me.

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.

I had always planned to watch 'June 9' on June 9th, but every year on that date I forget and so I finally just decided to watch it here in mid January. The film was not great I'm sad to say.

Man were these some tough characters to get onside with. Some movies just fail to make their characters likeable. This film on the other hand seemed to go out of its way to make them as unlikeable as possible. A strange choice considering it then needs us to care about their fate a little while later in the film.

There are actually some good moments in this film, however they are way too few and far between. The film takes forever to get going and by the time it does it is hard to care any longer. A generous 5/10.

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.

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