General Cemetery (2013)

Rating: Thumbs Up 👍

I thought this was an okay movie. General Cemetery is about a girl, Andrea, who lost her father and her friends just want to make her feel better. Of course the only way they can achieve this is by attempting to speak to her deceased father via a ouija board.

We really focus of Pablo, who claims to be making a documentary which is why we have all this footage. Mostly Pablo enjoys filming Andrea, who is depressed and usually staring off into the distance. The film starts with Pablo filming the funeral that Andrea and her mother are at, we are then taken to Andrea's house where Pablo has a discussion with her mother that I don't think was translated well. When he is in the kitchen he asks her mother about what happened that night, and she refuses to talk about it but then he tells her he has camera footage and wants to show her what happened that night - so I'm not sure what the mother knew or what they were really talking about. 

The footage he films is pretty typical, they're at school, Andrea's best friend of course has an aunt who knows how to use the ouija so they and there two other male friends make it a date at Andrea's house to try to communicate with her father. The two other male friends whose names I don't remember, I believe the attractive one was named Gabriel and they just referred to the other as Fatso, don't take it seriously. Well Fatso does, as it scares him, and Gabriel uses it to make fun of Fatso - he pretends the ouija spelled "I'm stupid" and makes him read it aloud. Andrea is pissed that they're not taking it seriously, so they plan to do it again at the cemetery where her father is buried on another night.

 The night rolls around and everyone is dressed in black and ready to go - only slight problem Andrea's little sister Eva has heard about this and wants to tag along as well. Andrea caves and Gabriel's hot girlfriend drives them to the cemetery. They climb a wall and Gabriel leads them through the extensive cemetery, pranking them once along the way, to their fathers grave. Ouija girl, whose name is possibly Marya, says it will work better on an old grave and forces them to move, much to Andrea's displeasure. 

They get set up and ready to go, Marya does some chanting and then ominous music begins playing, Fatso's cellphone is ringing (he changed the tone to fit the mood), Marya is pissed and collects everyones cellphones and puts them in her bag. Finally we reach some spirits but, to no ones surprise, Eva becomes possessed. There is an annoying amount of running around and screaming her name as possessed Eva is now the target. 

When Eva is finally caught Pablo is forced to go back to the sight of the seance to retrieve a bottle of holy water that Andrea brought with her. Pablo finds the holy water and notices that Marya has 20+ missed calls and a voicemail from her aunt. He listens to it and it turns out Marya planned all this as some sort of revenge. She's been harboring this for a long time, who knows if Eva was even born when she started planning this. Pablo runs back, they douse Eva, and then he confronts Marya about all this. Andrea is pissed and of course feels betrayed. Eva is still possessed and kills Marya.

We then come back to the beginning of the film, Pablo was filming Andrea and her mother at Eva's funeral, not her father's. Of course the mother has no idea why Pablo is showing her this tape, he tells her this is why and shows more footage of him still being haunted. I am going to assume everyone else who was there is still being haunted it just wasn't mentioned. Pablo doesn't want to deal with this anymore and wants Marya to leave him alone. 

The end isn't that great, they kill off Fatso and Gabriel very quickly, and quite frankly for no reason. Marya wanted revenge on Andrea and Eva because their father had an affair with her mother - this caused Marya's father to leave and her mother to end up in a mental institution. Eva was already dead from the possession and Andrea was on her way there - even their mother kills herself after finding out from Pablo about the affair. 

Basically no one survives in this movie, it's a good mix of "found footage" and actual filming. The found footage stuff isn't badly done, but sometimes it is out of focus which really annoyed me, but it wasn't shaky because they mixed the found footage that he filmed with actual filming of them so it's not all told from that point of view. 

Demonic (2015)

Rating: Thumbs Up 👍

I really liked this movie, I personally thought it was pretty good. It wasn't all found footage, which is so nice, and the way incorporate it makes sense. Twenty years ago, or twenty-five (I can't remember exactly), there was a mass murder at a remote house in a small town with only one survivor. So, twenty-five years later, a group of annoying ghost hunters decide to go there and perform a seance. 

The movie starts with a neighbor finding the bodies, his wife claimed she heard loud noises coming from the house so the poor man had to go check it out. So we already know that majority do not survive. There is one surviving male, that the police are interviewing, but his only concern is that his pregnant girlfriend made it out alive. 

Without getting too much into it, everything wraps up nicely and there are no unanswered questions, which there usually are in horror movies because of plot holes or laziness. I didn't have to google what the ending meant, and I'm not asking any questions here because I don't have any. It's a very complete feeling. 

Strayed (2014)

Rating: Thumbs Up 👍

I, the author who hates found footage films, actually liked this particular found footage film. I know, I'm still in shock. I still did not enjoy all the screaming at the end, mostly because I watch movies at like 2 AM and I don't want to wake anyone else up. 

What makes this film so different? It's funny. It's about a guy making this documentary as his thesis at an abandoned bathhouse. At the beginning of the film we learn that an exorcism successfully occurred here, and the demon is in a chest behind the very narrow number 18 door. They reference Paranormal Activity,  Ghostbusters, and Poltergeist, they make it seem like a real fake documentary instead of an obvious fake storyline. 

The skeptic friend, Lúcio, was very comedical throughout the first hour, from eating cereal that's been left there for 10 years to singing his own theme music while roaming the halls. To be far everything is funnier late at night, but I did laugh a handful of times. Humor probably isn't what you want in a paranormal found footage film, but it kind of gave it a more "real" feel. It honestly felt like that's how my friends and I would act if we were staying in an abandoned haunted place and filming it. 

I guess you could say that it's a bit slow moving and the killing and stalking doesn't pick up until very close to the end, but it was enjoyable to me. I could not find this film on IMDB under the name Strayed, which is it's name on Netflix, but after searching for cast members I found it under the Spanish name Perdidos.

Also I'm not sure what the were plugging all their CV cameras into, the main guy went to set one up in the bathroom on top of some lockers and he just threw the cords behind the locker to make it look like he did something with it. Lúcio just put his on a railed bed frame that was leaning on a cement brick wall, movie magic. 

The Houses October Built (2014)

Rating: Thumbs Down 👎

You know when a movie pisses you off so badly you have to vent about it? Well, this is one of those movies. This is the most annoying group of friends I've ever seen, and Zack is probably the most annoying. 

"Oh this is what you guys wanted."

"You wanted extreme haunting."

"We can't go home, we came this far."

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! If you have a friend like this, drop them, you don't need them. 

Like good job asshole, now you're all dead because you wanted to road trip across the south and find spooky haunted houses. The word "haunt" used to describe these haunted house adventures is fucking annoying, it's now a trigger word for me, don't say it around me or I'll deck you in the face. 

If someone broke into your RV, filmed you and your friends while sleeping, stole one of their driver's license and then uploaded it on the Internet for everyone to see and you chose to continue your road trip, that means you are the biggest, self-absorbed, annoying asshole in the world. 

I can't. I really can't. Anyone can make a movie these days and have shitty characters and an unclear storyline, I am sick of it! 

I want to beat these characters up, that's how angry I am that they just wasted my time with this garbage. 

Also they, they being this group of haunted house actors, took one of the friends, named Jeff, who I thought was the super annoying main guy, but it turned out it wasn't, so I literally have know idea who Jeff is/was. Sorry you didn't make an impact Jeff, try harder next time. 

Invoked (2015)

Rating: Thumbs Down 👎

2015 must have been a really bad year for creepy films. 

Terrible, absolutely terrible. I knew it was a found footage film before going into it, but good lord was it awful. Don't watch it, don't waste your time, it's not worth it. 

This is the type of movie where you cannot wait for all the characters to die, preferably in a very painful way. They were the most annoying, loud, and stupid group of people I've ever seen. This movie is essentially absolutely terrible camera movements and screaming. If I hear someone scream the name Craig again, I might have a flashback to this film and lose it. 

The only trivia fact on IMDB on this movie is that it was shot in just 3 days, I'm not surprised. The whole found footage genre usually is easy for creators in the sense that they don't have to show anything happening. You'll be looking at the floor while someone is being murdered and then you see them later with maybe blood coming out of their head. That is not exciting to the viewer, it's frustrating. If I want to watch bad home movies with yelling I can just watch tapes from my childhood.

Again, don't watch it. I wish I didn't watch it. So much screaming, not enough dying. Bloody hell. 

Archivo 253 (2015)

Rating: Thumbs Down 👎

If you've read any of my previous posts you will know my feelings towards found footage films, and if you haven't I will tell you now, I hate them. So I already didn't start off on a good foot with this film, I really feel Netflix should have a warning that says "Found Footage, Beware."

My perception of what this movie was going to be about based on the title and first few minutes:
The English translated title in the beginning of the film is File 253, which makes it seem like this group of four trespassers are going to find a file in the abandoned asylum. In the beginning, whoever is filming at the time, talks to a nurse who used to work at the asylum before it mysteriously shut down. She tells the cameraman that there was a wing in the asylum that only had two or three nurses allowed in, it was very high security, and she found that to be quite suspicious. So now I'm thinking that the four people are going to find a file documenting what happened in this super secret ward and I'm going to get the answer of why it closed down and why there are probably pissed off ghosts. I've seen a few haunted asylum films, but I actually enjoyed the premise that I literally just created for this movie. My movie would have been better.

What actually happened in the movie:
None of that. These people never find a file, they never tell me what happened in the super secret ward, or if they actually found the super secret ward. The amount of disappointment and frustration I am feeling is unreal. Don't name your movie File 253 if there isn't going to be a file, and don't bring up a super secret ward where you know terrible experiments are happening on patients if you are not going to address it. I mean really. There was a lot of hair everywhere, that was never explained, though normal for Asian horror films, I don't know if it's normal for Spanish horror films. 

This movie answered none of the questions that were brought up when the film started, it was like the beginning was for a different movie and once you got to the found footage from the four people that was a separate movie, with a whole different plot. 

Where is the file!?! Where is the goddamn file!

The Bell Witch Haunting (2013)

Rating: 0/5

(It's the 2013 version, as you can tell because it has "the" in front of it)

Another "found footage" film. 

When you hear haunting you think ghosts not demonic possessions. It ends up being more demonic possession with a ghost that is not an actual ghost. It was painful and so confusing.

A family just moved to Tennessee from Chicago and they only make it a week before everyone but one dies. The week felt like months. We've got a normal family; mom, dad, sometimes bitchy sister, and younger brother who gets a camera for his birthday that he will use to film every single waking hour of his life from that point forward. 

Annoying things/Issues:

• They say it's January, you do not have a pool party in January in Tennessee
• When the dad is cleaning the dishes in the kitchen blood gushes up through the garbage disposal and douses him, but no one seem to think it's blood or even speculates that it could be blood
• All the bad shit happens to the daughter, she keeps having night terrors and supernatural things happen to her
• The boy, of course, set up a bunch of security cams around the house, capturing the supernatural things happening, but never brings them up. I'm pretty sure he just records it and never watches it
• If you have prior knowledge to the Bell Witch stories or have visited it you will know everything wrong with this film
• When the mom is going through family photos there are always marks or stains over the daughters face, under the glass of the frame, no one really finds this super odd because they are obviously very stupid
• The husband has a seizure by the pool and end ups walking the street with bloody forearms until the wife hysterically calls the cops and they bring him home
• The daughter all disappears and the mom hysterically call the cops and the cop finds her eating a raccoon in a sewer and bring her home, this doesn't seem to phase them so much 
• The wife calls a priest for an exorcism and during it the daughter is obviously possessed, but during the film you will also see the "ghost" which is just a dirty person who lives in the cave with no ghostlike qualities

Also the 21th of January, just how do you do that?

Absence (2013)

Rating: 0/5

This does not need a long review. It is a "found footage" movie and the majority of the movie feels like you are watching a really boring home movie for friends you don't really care about. 

The start of the movie is that a pregnant woman, close to the end of her pregnancy, wakes up to find that she isn't pregnant anymore. Her and her husband are under investigation that they committed an abortion in the last trimester. Apparently the doctors aren't that good because I feel they would be able to tell if two non-doctors performed some kind of home abortion. Anyways they decide to get away from all the questions from neighbors and reporters by going on a therapy vacation to a cabin. Don't worry the woman's annoying film major brother is going to tag along to film every painstaking moment of this trip.

The movie is pretty much the husband and brother playing pranks on each other and an excruciating game night scene that just has nothing to do with anything. How did the woman magically lose her baby? 

No really, aliens. How do you know? During the credits they will show a generic alien face, so make sure you wait a bit and watch credits.

Hollow (2011)

Rating: 0/5

This movie is not worth your time, trust me, please. Four friends, or two couples, go to the brunette's dead grandpa's/uncle's home. He was a vicar, though that information really didn't matter. 

What's wrong with this movie:
-The vicar has been dead a year and yet all his stuff was still at his house, his family didn't want to clean up or keep anything apparently, like what's up with that. Gives you the idea he's not actually dead and still living there.

-The suicide tree, it seems to cause a lot of problems. Why didn't they just cut it down? If they didn't want to get to close to it they could have burned it, would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. 

-I don't understand why the brunette and her fiance were like practically over because I was under the impression that they like just got engaged. 

-What was the point with hitting the fox and then having the fox on the altar dissected? Was this karma because you hit the fox? 

-The brunette has asthma, in the last 20 minutes she does a lot of running and screaming and doesn't get an asthma attack when she got one the night before from a nightmare, just unrealistic. 

-Also during the last 20 minutes or so, the other girl twists her ankle while running but she seems to run just fine after that, bullshit.

-They have to just rely on the camcorders flashlight for light because there's no power at the house and apparently they don't have flashlights, how did that camcorder last all weekend because they used it a lot.

-A fisherman told a random story about a friar and something else, didn't go anywhere, was pointless. 

Everything until the end where they all die is useless, they put a lot of things that could be interesting to the story in but they go nowhere with it. My dad left 30 minutes into this movie and we had to force him back so he could suffer with the rest of us. 

Devil's Pass (2013)

Rating: 2/5

I really would not recommend this movie. Like it started out okay but then got really weird and just not good.

So in 1959 a group of 7 people while skiing or trekking in the Dyatlov Pass in Russia were all found dead in weird ways. It's been a huge mystery as of what happened ever since. Five students who are interested in this mystery decide to go to Russia to the pass to follow what the group of people did before dying to make it a documentary. 

Shorty after they set up the premise they have a news report showing the students are now missing/dead, so we know they don't make it.

Since this is a documentary they have found some people to interview who were around during the deaths. The first person was a guy who was supposed to go with them but didn't and when they find him at the old folks home he puts a sign in the window telling the students to go away, but of course none of them thought it necessary to learn any Russian at all so they don't know what the fuck the sign says. The second person they interview is a lady who actually helped find the bodies of the skiers , and the most interesting thing she tells them is that there were actually 11 bodies found but the government kind of covered it up.

The rest of the movie is the people arguing if this was a government conspiracy or was it a yeti. Yeti was mentioned so many times that you are expecting a yeti, but there never is one so you're kind of disappointed. 

In the snow they find a lot of footprints that kind of start and end like the person was dropped down from the sky (this is never really explained). They like to yell a lot without any fear of starting some kind of avalanche which will be their downfall. 

So the first student dies in an avalanche. The second broke his leg during the avalanche and while they're recovering from this "freak" accident two random ass people make it there (which apparently are government agents) and start shooting at them. The three remaining students ditch the broken legged guy and run to a bunker they found prior that locks from the outside, which, in my opinion, is a really dumb idea. One guy gets shot on the way in the bunker and then the agents lock them in. Shocker.

They are now faced with the impending doom or starvation and dehydration, I would have rather been shot. 

Apparently the Russian discovered teleportation and some kind of weird monster with fangs that were bald and shit, not yetis. 

And like it was fucked up before this but it gets more fucked up now, because I hate when there isn't a good explanation.
-The two extra bodies found in 1959 were the two students who got locked in the room with the teleportation device.
-In the beginning they showed footage from the girls camera while in the bunker locked in the room with the teleportation portal. While exploring the bunker they find the camera they are using on a table (because they took the camera while they went through the portal so the agents found it in 1959). No one tells you how the investigators recovered either camera from the bunker because there is no way the government would have let them in there. So how the hell did they get it and why didn't they get both? 
-In the 1959 scene where they take the two dead students bodies into the bunker to keep them they comment on how their clothes are weird, like what about the camcorder, that's pretty modern looking, you don't think this was some kind of warning that you shouldn't be playing with this shit?
-The two monster that they find in the bunker are the two students themselves so how are they existing at the same time, like I feel that is a huge flaw because it's like a mix of time travel and teleportation and they shouldn't exist because the students didn't go through the portal yet so ugh

Just save your time and don't watch it. This movie would have been better with a paranormal element not this weird teleportation government conspiracy crap.