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.

I am speechless. I am without speech.

How? Why? Who made this???

I am 50 minutes into the film, the monster has been seen in just a few frames so far, all blurred, they have been bickering without a break for half an hour, and they are in a house in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, as well, with light coming through one of the windows. It's not the moon, because it has been established that its totally dark. My guess is that the incompetent team decided to put a light there so the monster that's stalking them could be silhouetted for a second, again in a blurred image. Oh, and our crazy camera person, who is filming everything for some reason, turns the camera away from the monster whenever it makes an appearance. Also convenient for the CGI team, but bad news for the audience. This film makes no sense at all. The premise is moronic, even by found footage standards, the monsters are crap, and the characters literally scream and bicker without a break. They don't stop even as they are being eaten. Usually several quarrels would be taking place simultaneously. Do the filmmakers think the audiences will be immersed in the plot if they are made to endure this pointless and unmotivated bickering? Do they think we might empathise with the characters more? Cause, as many others have noted in the reviews, these characters are all obnoxious and you can't wait for them to die because you literally hate their guts. Watching this film is outright torture.

While many of the film-going public squawk about the gluttony of superhero films that are polluting our theatre screens on a repeating basis, it is with found footage films that I have reached my fill.

Made popular and mainstream in 1999 with The Blair Witch Project, there have been more dismal efforts (Apollo 18, The Zombie Diaries, The Feed) than there have been engrossing ones (Paranormal Activity, Cloverfield). Yet week in and week out, whether it be in the local theatre, video on demand or on DVD, there are release after release of found footage films with budgets of less than the average person's minimum Visa payment.

This week's latest cash-grab is Area 407 (also promoted as Tape 407). The film opens on a plane travelling between New York to Los Angeles on New Year's Eve where a young girl, Trish (Abigail Schrader) and her sister Jesse (Samantha Lester) are using their camera to video capture just about everything and everyone around them.

Side note: how is it in these found footage films they all have cameras with batteries that last so long as to even baffle a NASA scientist? After the obligatory introduction of a few central characters on the plane the passengers and crew celebrate New Year's Eve with cheers and noisemakers until a bad storm and turbulence send the darkened plane into a freefall. The plane crashes in a remote government testing ground and the handful of survivors that are left, band together in an attempt to find their bearings in the darkened night of their secluded surroundings.

But as we learn rather quickly, the plane crash was only the beginning of their nightmare as they are being stalked and hunted by some predatory creatures that look like mid-sized Jurassic Park raptors.

Armed with only their wits and a single gun coming courtesy of the Sky Marshall on board (how convenient she survived) the group will find their numbers dwindle as they struggle through the night for survival.

Area 407 was filmed in only five days and (according to IMDb.com) all the dialogue was ad lib. The dialogue before the plane crashes was actually engrossing banter that had our interest focused on the central characters.

But once the survivors collect themselves amongst the plane's wreckage, things go off the rails and the cast begin to yell, scream and draw out too many inconsequential conversations likely just to inflate the running time to a feature accepted 90-minutes.

As with most found footage films, the camera work is shaky and downright annoying. You will feel jerked, dropped and nauseous as the camera is passed between various characters that seem more intent on capturing their demise on film than putting down the damn device and using their senses to gather their bearings.

Directors Dale Fabrigar and Everette Wallin keep the creature out of sight and in the dark for most of the film which could work if you develop enough tension and atmosphere. But in Tape 407 audiences aren't engaged to any sense of caring or urgency and seeing the creatures in more detail would be the trade off for the long-in-tooth banter we are intended to endure.

Tape 407 ends in unexpected fashion with a conclusion intended to shock (I guess). But without caring about any of those that may survive or face their fate, you will likely just want it over at any cost. Even at the cost of writing off the video-on-demand investment.

www.killerreviews.com

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.

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.