Sx Tape

A girl is interviewed by the police. He mentions a tape, that her boyfriend is dead and that two others are missing.

And now we get to see the tape. Basically a guy films his girlfriend at all times. She's a painter, free spirit, fun-loving, wild and very cute. We follow them one day as they mess around, go to a coffee shop, into a store, then drive around as he shows her a place that could be used for a fancy art exhibition of her work. The place is an abandoned hospital. She of course rushes in through the fence and goes inside. He's reluctant but joins her. And of course everything seems fascinating to her. Incubators, children's toys, old beds. She gets on one and he restrains her. Then he leaves here there for a good while. A ghost appears and enters into her of sorts. At some point she starts bleeding profusely out of her nose. As they leave, he car is being towed so she calls a friend. A couple arrives. They of course wants to see the place. So even though the girl was freaking out earlier now she goes back in. They start tagging the walls. This new guy is a complete jerk and a bully. He even has a gun with him and gets very touchy with the girl even though his girlfriend is right there. They separate, run into each other again. Our first couple meets up, discovers the archive room and she finds some tape and a file and starts bleeding again. Meanwhile camera guy finds a room with cameras and sees what actually happened to the other couple and why they are missing. But his girl flips out once again. At the end we get some more background story of the place and its patients.

sxtape has one big advantage over all other crappy found footage tapes. It's centers on an attractive girl. If you are going to make a lame POV movie, that's what you want, your camera on a pretty girl occasionally in erotic situations. And this movie for the first half hour is fun and entertaining. But from there it goes downhill when the other couple arrives an we get nothing but abusive and obnoxious behavior. While the background of the hospital and the patients is interesting enough the movie unfortunately settles for psychological terror, which is never particularly scary let along interesting. A decent effort to rehabilitate the dreadful POV horror subgenre that doesn't go far enough.

A huge trend in low-budget films over the last few years have been the so-called 'found footage' movies. In other words, the participants in some horrible massacre, ghostly apparitions or alien invasion supposedly used a home video camera and the film you see is that actual footage. In the case of The Blair Witch Project, a tiny indie brought in many, many millions of dollars. However, by now, 15 years later, the idea no longer seems very innovative…in fact, it's become a bit of a cliché. While some newer found footage films manage to overcome this and still entertain (such as "Alien Abduction"), a lot of it is just crap…and "sxtape" is just crap.

There are two huge problems with this film. First, despite the title, there isn't that much skin in this film. Instead, they talk about sex a lot and when the characters supposedly are having sex, you don't see anything. So, for someone just wanting a cheap thrill, there just aren't very many. Second, and this is by far the biggest problem, the characters are utterly hateful and I was annoyed every second they were in the film. And, considering they are in just about every frame, it made watching this movie a real chore.

Adam is supposedly filming everything in this, so all you get from him is his voice. He's a weak-willed guy who seems to do whatever his nutty girlfriend, Jill, suggests. She is a super-annoying young lady who seems completely absorbed by herself. The dialog between them is among the worst I can recall in a film—and they have zero depth to their relationship. They just cuss, talk about sex and she does whatever she feels like doing—exposing herself to others, shoplifting or breaking into an old abandoned hospital. And, the hospital break-in consists of most of the film. Jill and Adam decide to sneak into the place and make a sex tape. However, mostly they just rummage through the old building where it appears as if no one has been there in decades—yet, inexplicably, the lights still sometimes work and the water is also working (huh?!). Later, after one foray into this creepy place, they bring a couple equally annoying friends and they run amok in this place. There isn't a lot of suspense, however, as when the film began, you learned about their fate.

The bottom line is that having ANYONE occupy this much footage on a found footage style film is tough because the viewer will most likely tire of their antics. But, when you make the people THIS annoying and banal, then it's practically impossible to enjoy the film or recommend it to anyone. Overall, it's a film lacking originality and horror that is instead just a horror to try to watch.

So my girlfriend and I decided to give this one a shot because we are fans of found footage horror movies and really liked the Grave Encounters movies. We didn't expect too much from this movie, and that's about what we got. To sum up sxtape quickly, just imagine Grave Encounters...now remove all the parts where stuff actually happens, and you have this movie. Firstly, having only 2 characters for the bulk of the film really limits what can happen, especially when the story and dialog are as horrendous as they are here. The characters are not developed whatsoever and I feel like they act in completely random ways during the events of the movie and I don't get any kind of definition as to their character or personalities. The setting itself is great, but highly underutilized. Once again, we have yet another movie in an abandoned place where the director expects the location to carry the movie and make it "creepy" and "unsettling" by default without adding further elements to conjure those moods. So, we're left with a movie that mainly involves two people walking around in an asylum (that was performing lobotomies in 1982 apparently! to hell with sense. oh and the water and power still works. suuuure) and talking about random stuff (sometimes sex, sometimes "this is weird we should leave...but let's stay for some reason"). I didn't get the feeling that there was anything beyond a very loose story arc for this movie (there is going to be a boring intro, a "creepy" overly drawn out mid section, and a brief & very predictable climax). There was some stuff that happened, but there was no particular purpose behind any of it and none lead to any significant developments. One huge flaw I found with the movie is that any time a scene starts to pick up - you hear something in the distance, ominous music starts to play, some ghostly voices echo in the background, the cameraman starts to run...OK this is about to get good...and then, bizarrely, the camera shuts off and comes back on a second later in a different location where nothing is happening and nothing became of whatever situation was about to go down. This completely kills the mood. I have no idea why this "technique" was used over and over throughout the film but it made it a chore to sit through, since any time you think something is about to happen you are jarringly let down. I think there is also a plot about ghosts or something, but it is never fleshed out, nor does it have much bearing on anything that happens other than to provide a boo scare or two.

Ultimately, this is just a bland attempt to follow in the footsteps of movies like Grave Encounters. Not the worst thing ever, though not particularly worth watching unless you absolutely must see every found footage horror movie out there.

This is the first film I've watched in a long time that I kept checking the run time to see when it would finish. The only reason I watched it all the way through was because I'd spent so long watching it and waiting for it to get better, I thought I might as well see it through to the end.

The lead female character, Jill, is incredibly annoying she literally says nothing of any meaning throughout the entire film - just nonsense and clichés like at one point while driving pretty aimlessly around Los Angeles, she says, "This is where all the stars go to die.".

Apparently, her boyfriend (behind the camera) is an 'artist' and he's doing an 'art project' which basically involves filming Jill acting dumb and being totally 'edgy'... Her idea of edgy being stuff that we've all seen before (and probably done before too).

It's a boring film. If you're looking for something similar, but better, watch Grave Encounters, or even Grave Encounters 2 - both are extremely similar in location and theme and, although they were also filmed on a low budget, they're far superior to this nonsense.

I've given it a 3 out of 10 because the acting isn't the worst I've seen, it's just a bad script, annoying characters and a dodgy plot.

I see the reviews are harsh, I won't be the one to break the ice on a quite good one, in order to attract attention or mislead people, but for someone who never was into found footage movies, I got to say this one kept me still, watching, waiting for more.

It starts slow, some nudity, some jokes and builds up to the key point in around 20 minute. From there on, it grows more and more and starts to deliver. Sure, nothing mind blowing, but considering the fact that zombie movies and found footage are spreading like a virus lately, once you do find a good one, it's good to get things straight. In my honest opinion, SxTape is a good example and here are the reasons: 1) acting was good; 2) characters were typical and natural; 3) once the tension makes an appearance it stays there; 4) one or two good scares (let's face it, found footage can't really be scary anymore;) 5) the twisted situation involved.

So all in all, I would recommend this one, if you don't expect too much out of it, it will be OK. Somehow of a "Grave encounters", maybe better, dunno exactly. Anyway, if you do go in for it, enjoy!

Cheers!