Daylight

Daylight seems to be, at first glance, a run-of-the-mill found footage film, rife with lots of running around (both at night AND during the day, because why not?), shaky hand-held camera work with gratuitous glitching from the editing room, several characters who insist on running said camera for every conceivable moment of their day (which they try and justify, but I mean, come on), and performances from actors which aren't terrible, per se, but which certainly won't win any Academy Awards.

But while accomplishing all of that, Daylight achieves something very, very different, and something that probably doesn't jive with a lot of self-proclaimed "horror buffs." The problem here is that I don't feel like Daylight, at its core, is really a horror film. There are no crap-your-pants scares, no ghastly exorcisms or CG ghouls flying around, and no over-the-top gore to appease those with bloodlust. Instead, Daylight is a slow-burn thriller spiced with the ingredients of a standard horror but couched in a formula that borders on art house, and the result is nothing short of intriguing.

The entire first half of the film, in fact, is nothing more than a crime investigation, which takes a couple of viewings just to sort out who's who and exactly why and how they all seem to know each other. But it's certainly not boring. Act 2 definitely tests one's patience and attention skills, as the chronological timeline goes haywire, and the story takes off in a different direction, which begins to amp up as the characters (and the narrative) start to get a little crazy. If nothing else, the film is worth sticking around for the last ten minutes, where the directors (there are 3 of them?) seem to have thrown the rules of filmmaking out the window and conceived of something that really cannot be explained, but is totally unexpected and amazingly insane and was a huge part of why I went back to watch the whole movie over again. And then again. And probably will again.

So would I suggest this movie to everybody I know? Probably not. At least not to anyone looking for cheap scares and mindless entertainment. There are plenty of other places to find that. But if you're looking for a dark, haunting, cerebral sort of experience, then you should definitely check this one out.

"Daylight" is another tedious entry in the micro-budget, c-horror "found footage" sub-genre. I happen to really enjoy these kinds of films and have viewed and reviewed many dozens of them over the last couple of years. This one is, unfortunately pretty typical of majority of these weekend-shoot videos. The acting is what you'd expect from a community college drama course and is often distractingly worse (the kind of acting that makes it seem like they are reading from the script for the first time). This makes it difficult to watch this one all the way through (esp as it just seemed to drone on and on...), but I think to review a film, you need to watch it all the way, just to be fair. Anyway, there were ZERO SCARES (in fact, nothing even remotely interesting in that regard - it was almost like a very long, very bland documentary instead of a horror film), and the plot was the standard dull fare for a supernatural/"demonic" storyline. I think the writers and directors intended some kind of psychological component but couldn't quite decide what kind of film they wanted to make. There's no mystery to the story, no intellectual subtext - it's just a haphazard effort that lacked cohesion and any kind of suspense- building on any level, ultimately. So, unfortunately, I wasted $5 on this rental (which is actually a pretty high price of admission when compared to most other films in this sub-genre on Amazon Instant) - which is a lot to throw away on a rental. Hopefully, this review will save you some money and time, as I definitely can't recommend this one. Really the only positives for this one are the use of quite good editing software (if heavily overused, esp with regard to the usual "found footage" camera flutters and video distortion) and graphics, high quality HD cameras, they did provide at least a full-length movie (though again that was a plus and a minus), the lack of tedious background music (so common to these kinds of films) and some kinda cool DVD cover artwork, which actually sold me on renting this clunker. I just want to save the viewing public from wasting their money, despite the phony reviews posted by family and friends of the filmmakers eager to earn some of their investment back.

This was possibly the worst movie I've ever seen, regardless of genre. Constant quick cuts, grainy video, multiple characters speaking simultaneously to make the dialogue indecipherable in order to hide the fact that the plot is completely inane. The running time was 1 hour 37 minutes but it felt like it was 6 hours of torture. The only positive thing that I can say is at least it was free on Amazon Prime.

OK, where do I begin! I watch movies every day, every genre from blockbuster to micro budget. I will watch practically anything from start to finish, even if it is awful! This film, DAYLIGHT, left me staring at the screen saying WTF just happened! Very loose plot, too many characters to keep up with, awful camera work (found footage motion sickness job) and a story that just goes to hell. I have no idea what the point of this film was, and Im pretty sure the director took some acid half way through filming because there is no way anyone in there right mind would have taken a movie in the direction this one took! Maybe you have to have some serious chemicals ingested in order to understand this film! Wow, Im still actually shaking my head at what I've just seen!

What a mess this movie was! I am almost at a loss for words. How do I even describe this movie?? Let's see....a super slow set up, about 10 different plot lines by the end including - paranormal elements, time travel, abused children, emotional trauma, murder, teleportation.. all culminating to a end that was nothing but people screaming, running around the various locations they teleport to, doors slamming, and camera interference, all of which lead to nothing. This movie tried so damn hard to do something different, but we were left with way too many plot developments, none of which get resolved. If this review sounds like a mess, it's simply because I am trying to describe the worst movie I have seen all year. Mind bending amounts of awfulness here. Oh, and the acting was horrible. At one point the camera guy actually whines "Oh man! Not again!!" after being teleported to a different location.