Untitled

A tad too long, not so good performances and a naive script. But I wasn't bored nor felt cheated. I knew It was a YouTube film and I took It for what It was. A decent student movie.

Untitled is yet another found footage style movie, once again a group of 20 somethings going somewhere with cameras to do a documentary. If you're an avid film fan you'll know I've literally just described dozens and dozens of films.

This one is British made and for the plot there really is nothing more to say that the first paragraph didn't cover.

We have 4 people, we have a bit of a love triangle going on and yeah.....I really can't describe the movies content anymore.

Alike most films of its genre very little happens, but somehow Untitled manages to deliver even less. This does not include the usual tropes of night vision or shaky camera running and screaming. Primarily because there is no actual content.

The movie is 1hr 40 minutes of chatter, this is more like a soap opera than a horror. It starts slowly and crawls to a standstill building to an ending I assure you you'll have seen before.

If you don't want to make original movies and just recycle content from others then why even bother?

The Good:

2/4 of the cast were competent enough

The Bad:

Goes nowhere

Unforgivably dull

No originality whatsoever

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I find myself hoping that the creators are ashamed of themselves for this film. Not only because it's bad, but because it's like they've just took a series of other movies of the same genre and took random parts of them jumbled them all up and regurgitated this nonsense.

One of the top 5 worst found footage movies I've seen (and I've seen a few).

"Was it interesting?" The story has been done dozens of times before. Even the horror back-story has been done. The haunted setting (once they get to it) is too cramped to do anything. .5 out of 3

"Was it entertaining?" The audio atrocious. After listening for about 2 minutes, I wasn't sure what language they were speaking. With a combination of some thick UK accent, mumbling or slurring lines, and just bad recording makes most of the dialog incomprehensible. The characters are some of the most annoying one dimensional "things" I've seen in a while. About halfway through I was yelling at the screen for these people to just die faster. 0 out of 3

"Was it memorable?" This review is memorable. That extremely predictable ending was not. I can't believe more than 5 people worked on this, and had to volunteer their time. I've seen numerous YouTube shorts and movies with far better quality (BlackBoxTV). .5 out of 3

Start with 1 (unfortunately), 1+0.5+0+0.5=2

I suppose other found footage movies can only be better.

It takes quite a while for this thing to start. We get more character background than we need or want at the beginning, then, finally, after padding more time by getting lost on the way to where they're going, the group ends up at the haunted location they want to film their documentary at. Then they pad more time with a will they or won't they stay scene. How many cliches have we hit so far? But wait, there's more! There are way too many convenient instances where the camera wasn't there to film what we really wanted to see. It was blatantly obvious. The camera is taken out of the room on some pretense and that happens to be the room where something happens. I get that there isn't a huge budget on this thing, but that doesn't mean you can get away with that. It also doesn't mean that you can't make an effective paranormal movie. For me, this did have some genuinely scary moments and I liked the way they used sound for paranormal effects. However, the sound while they were talking at the table and continuously slapping it was so bad that no one who made this thing must have cared. The acting, to me, was above average for something with no budget. The cast was attractive, too. The biggest problem is that after this thing finally gets going, it refuses to show you anything. There are too many people who think they can get away with this. Your audience will rightfully be disappointed. The best punishment for the makers of any film is to make them watch what they've done. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen, but I can't recommend it. If you like found footage, paranormal movies, this is one of them, I guess. Start it about 22 minutes in. That will save you some time.

As far as found footage horror movies are concerned, plots overall tend to fall on the predictable side. 'Untitled' is no exception with its (back)story that is nothing but skin and bones: friends shooting a documentary, some haunted place, group psychology drama, and yaddi-yadda. Still, the story slowly fleshes out thanks to character development and proper editing - enough to keep the audience intrigued throughout.

You will not lose your sleep over the characters' fate, you will not watch this movie ten times in a row... and yet it does a pretty decent job of adding to the genre, considering its limited resources. A sequel 'Untold' is supposedly in the works... until then, the 'outtakes' will likely put a smile on your face.

On the plus side: - authentic feel without relying on constant shake or jump scares; - characters that are believable and relatable; - landscape and premises put to good use.

On the minus side: - sound mixing flaws (a few mumbled lines... or is it intended?); - special video fx and (pseudo-)tech talk could have been more refined; - background music in the middle seems odd.