Atrocity

Maybe THE BEST....great acting, great story, all kinds of twists, completely original. That simple.

Well I've been on an Amazon Prime bender. "Atrocity" is basically two parts. One part is recovered found footage of a Teen Birthday party gone awry. So lots of "DudeBro" douchebag talk, cussing, and posturing. Lots of yelling and screaming. It grates on the nerves. But given the situation it's believable. What happened during the party??

The next half is clips of an interrogation. This is coupled with commentary by a team of Detectives trying to piece together what went down. At times it's almost like an episode from Investigation Discovery etc.

Oddly it is compelling in that you want to find out what exactly happened. You see it's finally pieced together years later. True enough the kids aren't exactly likeable but I've known people like them in College. "Animal house" this is not. There is little to no joy to be had here.

This isn't a typical found footage. There is no Supernatural entity.... No ghosts or haunted houses. This one is fairly realistic... Maybe too much.

I have to admit, this movie wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It actually kept my attention all along. It was interesting to see what happens when you have a cocktail of testosterone, drugs, alcohol, the internet, sex and lies and what it led to.

***Spoiler alert***

I would've liked to see what Brennan had been up to, and what he looked like, after all those years. Also, how come the detective did not recognize Brennan, considering he was behind the camera and had a distinctive injury? That made no sense. Besides that, it's worth the watch.

A real low-budget production, streaming free on Tubi.

The movie has a few notable weaknesses. The first 20 minutes or so are especially annoying, with lots of annoying fratboy chatter. This is a real problem, since it's very easy to turn things off during this section. Once we get to the core of the story, things perk up.

The story is generally confusing, but I think that's part of the point. The situation has gotten crazy, and everyone goes nuts at the same moment.

At that point, we get very invested in trying to figure out who did what, and what the end result was.

As stated elsewhere, no one in this really comes out looking like a good person. And that's alright.

In a strange way, it reminds me a little of Hell House LLC, in that we are presented with a mystery - wanting to know what happened - and we get a steady drip of revelations that allow us to piece things together. It's an effective approach.

There is a bit at the end that was disappointing, but only because the script feels too much like an effort to spell things out, and the acting got very stilted.

Still, for a very low budget production, if you have the patience to get through annoying guys, it's a nice surprise to find something like this.

I don't understand the low rating for this one. I mean the beginning with the guys just yelling back and fourth with each other was annoying. And some acting was bleh.. But the rest of the movie was really good in a way. Kept you guessing and the twists until the very end. I did not see coming at alllll.