Mockingbird

The idea of a couple of people have to film something over a strange contest is a interesting idea, but the actual story feels similar to the director first movie. The story is kind of like the found footage version of The Strangers with three characters being targeted and harass by an unknown person. Its easily predictable and there's a couple of cheap jump scares throughout the movie. There's also a minor side plot of Leonard doing a bunch of random things by the unknown person, but that isn't that interesting to watch. Also the movie spends a lot of time with the three characters hiding or thinking of a plan.

I have to say that the ending is really stupid and doesn't make any sense. No spoilers, but its really bad compared to The Gallows.

The middle class Emmy (Audrey Marie Anderson) receives a video camera at home and her husband Tom (Todd Stashwick) starts filming. They believe they won a prize from the mall. The college student Beth (Alexandra Lydon) is alone and bored in the empty campus and also receives a camera. Out of the blue, they are instructed to film and not call the police; otherwise they will die. Meanwhile the unemployed Leonard (Barak Hardley) that lives with his mother receives a clown outfit and make-up and instructions to receive ten thousand dollars. After moments of tension, their lives are tragically entwined. Who is the stranger behind the prank?

"Mockingbird" is among the most annoying and stupid movies with shaky camera. The story is not scary but irritating; the plot is not believable; and the conclusion is silly and unrealistic. Only the classical music score saves in this awful movie. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "Perseguidos Pela Morte" ("Chased by Death")

Man was I excited to see this film. Found Footage isn't exactly my cup of tea but this sounded pretty original and I had heard some good things about it. Boy was I mislead, this was a huge disappointment and left me pretty bummed that I had sat through it all.

So it starts out pretty interesting. We are introduced to a couple, a woman, and a guy who lives with his mother. They are all given camera's that they are convinced that they won in contests however quickly find out something more sinister is going on. Sounds fun right? Wrong, the problem is that the movie hardly goes anywhere. I could easily sit here and tell you every single thing that happens in the movie in less that 3 minutes, obviously I won't to retain from spoiling but you get my point.

The movie was just so dull. The Woman's story basically just consists of her sitting in here house while she receives creepy voice mails. The couple's story play out the same way. The Mommas boy's story is by far the most interesting even though it really isn't all that great, but at least he leaves his house and is required to do some tasks. The ending was incredibly predictable and could be seen coming a mile away. On a positive though the acting was pretty solid throughout.

Overall this was just hardly worth my time. It keeps you watching to see the finale, but what it leads up to really is not very good at all. There was a tiny bit of suspense but it is stomped out by the time the credits roll. Very disappointing movie and not really worth it.

3/10

My favorite thing about this is the clown; I'm barely a fan of found-footage films. I originally saw this years ago when it came out in 2014 on a streaming service and even then I didn't mind it, it's definitely disturbing! Bryan Bertino has much better films like The Strangers and The Monster - both are spectacular in my opinion. Also found-footage types are really hard to enjoy in most cases but I recommend this, if not anything in the VHS series is great.

Bryan Bertino needs to put his ego aside and go back to film school to learn how to make a watchable movie. Since this comes across as a movie a novice film school student might make, here are some hints for him:

* The shaky camera technique used throughout the movie becomes annoying after a point. It worked for "Blair Witch Project", but has never worked since. It doesn't make any movie more suspenseful or scary, unless used sparingly. Using it this much shows a lack of creativity on the part of the writer/director. It's also obvious that not all the shots are done with the cameras the characters are given. It is a very sloppy use of the "found footage" technique, which has already gotten old, and should be abandoned by any capable writer or director.

* The lighting flashing from dark to bright used throughout the movie becomes annoying after a point. It doesn't make any movie more suspenseful or scary, unless used sparingly. Using it this much shows a lack of creativity on the part of the writer/director. That's especially true since there is no realistic reason for the relatively constant rapid changes from darkness to light in large parts of the film.

* Having all the characters react in unrealistic ways does not become more believable by covering them up with shaky camera movements and flashing lights.

* Long, drawn out shots that add nothing to the plot drag a movie down. Using them this much shows a lack of creativity on the part of the writer/director. But I guess he had to turn what could have been a possibly decent short film into an hour and 22 minutes feature somehow.

* A movie needs to have some context, some cohesiveness that draws the viewer in. That is completely lacking here, all the way through. I don't look for realism or a complete lack of plot holes (and there are plenty here) in a B horror movie, but I would like some logic in its progression. There is none here.

The above makes any experienced viewer lose interest before the 1-hour mark. I only stuck it out because the movie is thankfully short.

Then there is the final scene, which is drawn out painfully long (again, probably to pad the movie), and ends with a ridiculous payoff. The inexplicable makeup and utter lack of believability that the characters that pulled off this "prank" could have done so further ruins what is already a very bad movie. I even "get" the ending, which I guess was supposed to surprise me. But no. It only added to how badly written and executed the film was.

How Bertino managed to get a major studio to back this mess with somewhat good production values and a large crew is a mystery. The fact that it went directly to disk (ones that are being sold dirt cheap) is not a mystery. It is disappointing, though, that a film like this gets to disk while so many older and recent much better movies never do.

I am amazed at the few positive reviews I see here for this mess. Since the one guy misspells "style" in his title, it makes me think that only young viewers that haven't seen very many horror movies, or movies in general, could enjoy this.