User reviews

The movie was okay and had a lot of potential. The brother is SUPER annoying and sometimes makes it hard to watch. I almost stopped watching because of him. The lead actress is great. I think the movie would have been better without the brother. There are times you wonder WHY IS HE STILL FILMING and a couple things are left unanswered... Other than that I think it's worth a watch if you can sit through the annoying brother.

Wow!!! That was bad! I'm always looking for horror movies and I watch pretty much anything that is released, which usually leads me to disappointment. This particular "movie" was worst than usual however. I really don't understand why we are supposed to get a headache while watching something that should be entertaining; I (anyone) could have made a better job with a cellphone camera. The "story" was just pathetic and the characters annoying. I'm not very creative, I give you that; but given that it's their job, they should be, at least, a bit good at coming up with an interesting plot. This sucked!!!

Avoid this atrocity..take a nap instead.

I read the reviews and waited for the film to pick up but all it did was p**s me off. The slow pace did allow you to connect to the characters but as I waited for the tension to build the film ended. don't waste your time with this rubbish movie, you'll have more fun staring at the wall. I recently watch the conjuring and truly enjoyed that. I saw this recommended and hoped for similar thrills but feel I wasted over an hour of my life. I hate to write negative reviews but I hope to save you the same fate as me and would suggest to avoid at all cost. There were a couple of points when I thought it might pick up so I hung in there until the end and even after the credits just in case, but nope.... it was p**s poor to the end

Doctors are baffled when an expectant mother wakes to find her nearly-to-term pregnancy apparently disappear overnight. Police investigate the situation as a missing child, and only her husband and brother trust her version of events.

The movie starts out with some of the most wild shaky cam ever put on film, and then turns into an amateur documentary complete with the wonderful "found footage" style of camera-work. Each time this technique is used it gets more and more irritating, and by 2013 the creators of these films should know better than to use it unless they have a darn good reason.

Perhaps this film is called "Absence" because it has an almost complete absence of horror elements. Most of the movie is just footage of flirting, drinking, hanging out. Maybe ten minutes really involves anything scary or supernatural. One could argue this effectively builds the characters, but it does this at the expense of any narrative a viewer would give a hoot about.

First of all before I begin this review, I would like to say I watched this movie expecting an average found footage movie and weren't expecting an amazing blockbuster movie so if you're a fan of the found footage sub genre then check it out, if not then stay far away.

With the recent wave of alien movies hitting our shelves/big screens (such as Unaware, Dark Skies, Tape #4 in V/H/S/2, etc.) I was excited to see what directors could offer us next. Here we have Absence, a brand new immediately underrated creepy and suspenseful found footage sci-fi horror movie, before I say anymore, here's a quick rundown on the movie's plot:

The movie begins with Evan, a camera obsessed student filming his sister, Liz and her husband, Rick in hospital where they have just been told that the previously pregnant Liz is no longer pregnant which soon becomes a missing child case which leads to Liz and Rick being the talk of the town and being hassled by the media, etc. so to get a break from it all they decide to go to Rick's family cabin in the woods for a while and it's from this point on where things start to get really weird...

After the hospital scene at the start of the film it does become very slow moving which in my opinion is a good thing because whilst the film is at a slow pace it gives you time to get to know the characters better so when the bad stuff does happen to them you'll care more about whether they live/die. It also adds a great sense of realism to the film when you see them cooking, playing pranks on each other, etc.

When the scares do eventually show up it's worth the wait as this film has some very creepy moments, one in particular with a visitor at the back door at night time, which is a very quick but effective scare. I don't want to spoil anything but as with most found footage endings the ending is also very effective and the least I say about it the better.

Overall I've gave this movie a solid 9 out of 10 because I thought it was a great found footage scare-fest that fans of movies such as Paranormal Activity, Unaware, The Fourth Kind and Dark Skies will enjoy, however, as I mentioned at the start of the review, if you hate found footage films and are expecting a blockbuster movie with amazing special effects and amazing actors then stay clear, this isn't for you.

I hated Blair Witch. I totally hate found footage movies. It' s the absolute bottom of the barrel for movie plots. Just plain lazy.

If anybody EVER sat there, filming everything when catastrophic events were happening, I'd take their camera away from them, put it in a pillow case and beat them to death with it.

Such an unreal plot, inane, weak, and lame.

Here's EVERY found footage movie...(Screaming)...(Shaking camera)...running...grunts....(more shaking camera).

Stop it already.

Don't be lazy. Put some effort into the movie for Pete's sake.

Here's an idea. If you can't think of a good story, can't find people who can act, and have only $5 for a budget DON'T MAKE A MOVIE.

Within the first 5 minutes you'll know if you'll like this film or not. It's obviously a found footage film, which doesn't automatically make it terrible, but we can rule out anything over 8 stars right off.

So I tried to keep watching and it seems like the camera is constantly at arms length away from the actors, and this gets annoying really quick. It reminds me of people taking selfies and such. The acting soon gets out of control, over the top and I had to skip ahead. After a few skips I'm half way through the movie and my field of view is consistently too close. This is too much.

I came here to see if anyone else noticed this or if it was just me, but I found out the spoilers and glad I didn't finish it. Zero ending? Ahhh just terrible through and through then.

Everyone is saying this movie is so good. I watched it because of the reviews. This was one of the worst movies I habe ever seen. It was not scary and the ending was stupid. I can't believe I wasted my time.

Was when they finally dispatched of the annoying brother who possessed zero redeemable traits what-so-ever. This movie would have been better had this nonsense not become part of the plot, and does more against this quality of this movie than to help it.

Add that less of the jumpy out of focus hand held found footage would have improved this flick tremendously. Because all that bouncing around pointing at the ground does not make a good movie.

And I agree with other reviews when it comes to the baby never being part of this flick, other than it was missing at the beginning. And the PSA regarding fetal abductions, nothing more is examined about the missing baby.

On another note, I found it far fetched that any woman would find that weak useless brother worthwhile investing any time into.

Absence is pretty much absent of any real excitement.

Absence begins with Evan, a young film student who is documenting his sister Liz and her husband, whose 7-month old baby fetus mysteriously vanished from his sisters body.

The trio escape the questioning from police and media attention and head off to a cabin in the woods. They, nor the doctors have any explanation for what happened to Liz.

The documentary shooting is real but sloppy for a films sake. No-one holds the camera twenty-four-seven and you do put it down when needing to do something (as is what happens in the film). It can be annoying for the viewer's pleasure to watch a wall while hearing a conversation in the background.

The central mystery of the disappearance takes a while to get into and the scares are far and few between but it does have the odd scene and shot that was worth the wait.

The ending was expected once it happened but I enjoyed it all the same.

If you're not a fan of found footage, you may not like this movie but if you are you'll want to give it a go.

First of all, I'm a huge fan of the genre and I have to say that this movie is without a doubt one of my favorites. I really don't get why it has such a low rating here or why people are so disappointed with it. In my humble opinion, all the people who were so disappointed, simply did not get the idea of the movie. The tension in the movie is building up slowly and that's what I love about it. I hate it when they show you the monster in the first 10 minutes of the movie,then I lose interest. I envy all the people out there who still haven't seen it. The actors are doing a great job. I just love everything about this movie, I recommend it to all of you, alien nerds.

This film immediately opens, with no introduction or opening credits or anything. it starts us off with the insane incident of a pregnant woman in the hospital whose unborn baby disappears. It's just gone. There's a brief text plate bringing up that fetal theft is a real thing, but nothing in the film indicates this was a genuine case of that, which would typically involve violence, but it's rather clear that the woman here, Liz, was not attacked by anyone. The fetus just disappeared.

The main core of the film itself covers Liz and her husband Rick going out on a vacation with her brother Evan, with Evan recording everything in part to document their attempts to work through their grief, and in part to defend themselves as people in the town they live in start to think that the group did something, or had an incredibly late term abortion and are lying about it.

The majority of the film is straightforward and conventional, with the added benefit that each of the actors does a spectacular job with their characters, making them compelling on their own, with a genuine sense of chemistry in their interactions with each other.

The implications of what happened to Liz are just that, implications. Throughout the whole of the filmed events, we get a tiny few instances of weird, psychotic events, which the trio have no memory of afterwards. It is played with an immense subtlety that is just perfect for grounding this story and making it less about sci-fi horror and more about the reality of going on living life, through the eyes of Evan, with a sister whose unborn baby just disappeared out of her womb. The added instances of weirdness only help add a layer of mystery and horror behind an already traumatizing story.

The end comes about somewhat abruptly, and indulges itself after restraining itself for so long. It didn't quite have the same impact as the rest of the film to me, but it was at least was minimalist, and did not end up detracting from the rest of the film at all.