Tape 407

I thought that, being some kind of fan of found footage movies, nothing could really let me down so much. Man, was I wrong.

Here we have a film with no qualities whatsoever. At the beginning, I was happy to see a girl (Jess) who reminded me of a chick I went out with a few times ages ago (hey, Rosemary, hello if you are there!). I decided to try to cope with the EXTREMELY annoying mixture of nails running through a blackboard and forks scratching a plate that is the voice of the sister (Trisha). Boy, this -supposedly- 13 years old girl not only behaves like she's 8, but that bloody screeching thing she had for a voice... Jesus Christ. Anyway, at the very beginning, I found the actors natural enough and I thought "ok". Then, 5 minutes into the movie, I was starting to wonder why nothing is happening at all. After the movie goes on and the "actors" show their true colours of stereotypes and horrendous acting, I started to skip chunks by fast forwarding because NOTHING happens in this movie. There's a lot of unrelated talk, of walking around while they are at it, when they are not simply getting hysterical for no reason or repeating "shut up, Charlie". I could fast forward 5 minutes and they'd still be talking about the same (how my leg is hurting or how tired they are), still the camera focusing on their strides while they walk a dirty road. The whole movie is like that.

In total, I'd say that, throughout the 1h 29sec of film, we get to see 5 seconds of blurry bad CGI (2 of them at the very end of the movie). And perhaps about 10 secs of (what is supposed to be?) scary noises (a mixture of lions in heat and dinosaurs with bowel problems). That's all there's to this movie. There's no terror, sense of dread, no real mystery or feeling of threat. SERIOUSLY. NONE. Not even a jack-in-the-box type of scare.

At some points, I smiled or even laughed a couple of times because of the crap acting or ridiculous situations (which are suppose to be very serious and frightening).

At some point, as well, I stopped thinking about that girl I used to know and forgot about hoping to see the actress showing her big bare bust (sorry, I had to focus on something during this garbage of a film, and like I said, she brought back memories of someone else) and simply hated her, like the rest of the people involved in this pathetic movie.

I could almost say that, as an exception, the IMDb score is right. Although, on second thought, that's not correct. This movie deserves a much lower score. This movie is RIDICULOUS. Maybe your 5 years old child will find some amusement while wasting precious time instead of doing something more useful. Like, nothing. After all, that's what they do in this movie. Why would you watch a fiction when you or your toddler can experience firsthand the excitement of doing nothing?

So, hey, if you are bored with your friends, grab a couple of cameras, go out there with some of them while some others hide in the bushes farting a couple of times for scary special effects, run a bit for 2 minutes screaming around and making crazy people noises while drooling, get some tomato sauce on your temples, stop and talk about the weather for 15 minutes and repeat. You can edit the film back at home and use any freeware to add some shitty visual effects for a fraction of a second here and there. You need to be no computer expert! And voilà. Oh, and remember, getting a chubby busty girl to do a topless might get you that extra point!

..Although, you'd probably need more money to achieve that frontal nudity than the total budget for the entire piece of art.

Another one of those found footage movies that you really wish nobody ever "found". Not only are the characters super fake and annoying, they all entirely ad-libbed their lines, which sets you up for each character repeating everything over and over since there was no script. The special effects are even worse. It's almost physically painful to watch. I really wish they could make a good found footage movie without the acting being super awkward. Nothing about it was realistic or even close to believable. The little girl with the pigtails will make you wanna rip your head off. She says she's thirteen but she acts like a little five year old. It's exhausting. If you are unfortunate enough to watch this movie then you are in for an hour and thirty minutes of pure torture.

Though they do not turn green (any of the characters that is). Come to think about it, it would have made the movie better though. My strange thoughts aside though, this "Found Footage" movie is one of the worst offspring that this craze has brought us. I do wonder if anyone actually believes any of those are "real"? If you're too young to remember or never cared for them anyway, I will point you to Blair Witch Project. A movie that had some people trembling because the viral marketing (internet presence) made them believe it was real.

But this movie does not even deserve that attention. While they do try to put some special effects in it, the fact it looks cheap is not the worst part. It's the characters, that might be up for a Guinness book entry for most annoying film characters ever. You almost feel sorry for the actors portraying them, if you can stop feeling sorry for yourself or your precious time that you've wasted that is.

While I never was big on those Found Footage movies, there have been some exceptions (i.e. movies) that were made with some finesse and some excellent ideas/dialogue or characters. Those things are absent here. You do get a 2 or 3 scenes that may shock you for a second (and the ending is actually pretty neat, therefor the 2/10 and not the 1/10), but overall, you'll be wasting your time and test your nerves to the breaking point if you really take the challenge of watching this.

I could write so much more, but I'll leave it at that. It's your "call" (no pun intended)

I attended a late night showing in a seedy section of downtown Los Angeles which put me in the mood to be scared already, plus it was the night before Halloween and several theater goes were in costumes so the mood was set for what was to follow. The film opens with two sisters traveling cross country and documenting it on their video camera. The younger of the two is quite annoying and I was wishing already that something horrific would happen to her. The character development was slick as it was all done via the words of each of themselves speaking to our little vixens of the friendly skies. After a few minutes of small talk as the passengers board the plane we are treated to an obnoxious passenger that is obviously in need of a drink or has already had one too many and things go downhill from there for this doomed flight. Once on the ground things take an eerie turn in another direction as we now have changed from a disaster film to a horror film! Delightful gore and confusion follows our wayward sojourners as the plot thickens and the mayhem continues. This movie began like a roller coaster ride as we clickety-clacked and climbed to a fever pitch height in order to be brought crashing down with a violent momentum that had like any great amusement park ride, an ending that makes you say "Oh wow I didn't see one coming!".

Before watching this movie I read several reviews and was so disheartened by them that I was ready to burn the DVD and forget about it, but then, remembering past similar experiences decided against burning the CD (pollution) and to give it a try.

I started watching the film with great apprehension, specially after hearing the squeaky, high pitch, unbearable voice of the blonde girl, but breathing deeply I kept firmly in my decision to see this movie.

I was quite surprised to find it not bad at all! specially the first part, until the plane crash. From then on, this gimmick with the hand held camera as the only visual support for the story was a bit too much, and later on, almost oppressive and tiresome to a screaming point (my nerves!).

I'm sorry the monster didn't kill the blond teenager at the very beginning of the movie, because she was really unbearable. The fat passenger was a very good actor, because he really was that kind of character that you want to strangle with your bare hands, and he kept it up for the whole length of the movie.

The airline hostess was another lovable character, and a very good actress, since she really gave the impression that catering to airplane passengers was her daily métier.

I found two unpardonable faults with this film: The hand held camera as the only camera to shoot the whole movie and the very last scene, where we get to see (fortunately very briefly) something that should have never been shown. When will they learn (the makers of thrillers) that showing "the thing" is always a let down for the believability of the story?

That's why in "Rebecca" (Alfred Hitchcock - 1940) Rebecca never appears, not even for a moment, not even as a shadow. She was (they specially emphasize it) "the most beautiful creature I have ever seen" as one of the characters says and who could have portrayed such a creature? (Ava Gardner or María Félix, of course) but there is nothing like our own IMAGINATION and Hitchcock new it.

In this case I'm afraid they didn't know that.

The movie is too noisy with screams and shouting and crying and that goes on for too long with a hand held camera shaking your brains continuously by moving hysterically in all directions at once, making the watching very fatiguing. But it isn't such a horrendous film as so many critics said in their reviews. I don't have the heart to recommend it, I'll leave it up to you.