The Lost Footage of Leah Sullivan

THE LOST FOOTAGE OF LEAH SULLIVAN is about the title character's (Anna Stromberg) journalism class project / investigation into some murders that occurred thirty years earlier, in a small town in Massachusetts. At first, everything is upbeat, and by the book. Leah is joined by a good-natured cop (Burt Grinstead). Together, they uncover a lot more than they had anticipated.

As she digs deeper, Leah's video begins to take on a much more ominous quality.

As far as "found footage" horror films go, this is a pretty good one. The primary ruse works well, with Leah's "project" making it easier for the viewer to suspend disbelief, and accept her filming of everything. Of course, as in many of these FF movies, there comes a time when using a camera is absurd, like when in a life-or-death struggle. It happens here too.

Still, it's worth watching. The tension builds slowly, in a casual, natural way, right up until the bonkers finale. Is it scary? Somewhat, although it's extremely difficult to be original in this subgenre.

Ms. Stromberg co-wrote the screenplay, along with Mr. Grinstead, who also directed it...

If you are not a fan of found footage films, this movie will not be the one to convert you. Many segments are shot with the camera on a tripod as the main character interviews locals for her documentary. But eventually, there are some handheld sequences that are blurry, dark, and swing too wildly to see anything. I think a lot of viewers will also feel like they didn't get enough scares, and not enough payoff. I wouldn't call it a slow burn, but there is a lot of setup before you get any scenes where some action might take place. I liked the lead actress a lot; I really thought she was Jennifer Morrison at first. Her performance carries the film. The other main character, the cop, didn't feel as believable to me. Pretty much everyone else seem like they are doing some mediocre improv. There isn't too much filler, but there are some shots that go on way too long. However, I did feel some genuine tension. I wish the movie was a little more balanced somehow; the characters spend a lot of time talking in safe places. But when it got to a creepy part, it kept me anxious for such an extended period, I had to take a break. I'm glad I gave this one a try, because I don't find many movies that can get a reaction from me.

I love found footage horror movies, including amateur productions, as long as they're even the least bit scary and sincere. This has a few good scares in it, but they were too few and far between to make this work.

The beginning of this movie hooked me. I thought, "Finally! A good one!" The lead actually sounded like a competent and talented newscaster and the footage felt real enough with outtakes, cover footage, and all.

The first two minutes show her in front of an abandoned house doing her spiel about what happened in it and we see a figure pass by a window. It's brief and in the distance, but unmistakable and creepy. I smiled and settled in eager to see more.

Then she gets stopped by a cop after she almost hits someone while driving and trying to film at the same time. He ends up asking her out for coffee and much of the rest of the movie is like watching them on terribly awkward dates. There are also several interviews with other people that aren't very entertaining and there just for exposition that we honestly don't need.

She and the cop go to the abandoned house again to explore and catch some obvious footage of weird stuff that neither of them sees but we do, even though she seems to have forgotten how to use and focus a camera all of a sudden so it's all blurry and shaky - and so lame. In every handheld camera scene she seems to have absolutely no idea what she's doing anymore. It's even aimed at the floor a lot of the time. I found myself wanting to shout at the screen, "What is wrong with you??"

And then, just as bad, for whatever reason she's obviously not reviewing her footage or she would have seen the scary blurry figure in the background just like we did - and just like we wanted to see way more of.

She seems so interested and invested while looking at crime scene photos and doing interviews but dismisses anything weird that happens at while the house and doesn't review her footage? Half the time she seems intelligent and serious and the other half she's clueless and it's just a big joke to her. It doesn't work.

This is a found footage movie that ignores anything it captures and over the course of an hour and a half only gives us about three and a half tiny glimpses of what we came to see. How did they possibly think that would be effective?

It's a damn shame because aside from the absolutely terrible handheld camera work they had some great scenes and decent tension and even decent acting and what looked to me like a decent "monster". I'm okay with it never being shown clearly, just don't ignore it.

I've never called a movie "dumb" before. This one is dumb. So dumb. I don't think it's worth your time, unfortunately. I'm giving this a very generous 4/10 for the potential it had, the talent involved, and the few effective scares.

I thought it started out pretty good with a bunch of interviews to flesh out the story. There were some pretty creepy camera shots and then the whole thing fell apart at the end. It was so dark I had no idea what was going on. Then it just stopped. Such a shame.

This is a solid, fairly fast paced found footage that does a lot of things right. The first thing I noticed was that the characters are all (with the obvious endgame exception) nice people and you can truly invest in their welfare. All to often these movies are populated with knuckleheads you are glad to see die (movie world naturally). But in this one, I want them to survive and it's been a while since I've felt that for a character. The editing is kept to a minimum to help give the 'found on a memory stick" back story credence and even though some of the blank/long pause shorts are, well.......long, they are still part of the what would be expected of finding genuine footage and help with the scenario setup. Story wise, nothing too new here but not done to death supernatural foolishness that I'm sure most of have seen plenty of anyway and I really enjoyed what they did come up with. Short version, good stuff that gave me a few laughs and a tight chest moment several times.