SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

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.

**Contains Spoilers**It's a well known adage that the scariest part of a movie is what you DON'T show. While this can be true, a lot of filmmakers lately (particularly ones with low budgets) take this to mean that fuzzy footage and static is just as scary as an actual scary image. If you're the type who gets chills when TV snow appears on your home movies, you'll love this movie. Everyone else: give it a miss. I'll agree that the scariest part of the story is what you don't know, but for there to be a scariest PART of a story, there must first BE a story. What we have here is lazy storytelling. It starts good, with the missing baby. Then there's 45 minutes of completely band vacation footage that doesn't progress the storyline at all. Then there's about 10 minutes of interesting events which, following a good plot construct, should lead to a climax. But there is no climax. Or conflict for that matter. There's just leading up, followed by an end. And when I say end, I don't mean a story ending or a resolution. The credits just start rolling. If you absolutely NEED to know what happens, here's a rundown of events: "Doctors are baffled when a young expectant mother wakes to find her nearly to term pregnancy has disappeared overnight." First of all, know that her pregnancy has absolutely zilch to do with the movie. The movie opens in the hospital, showing the young mother crying and a nurse speaking angrily to some cops. The grief from this event is what prompts the young couple (and the woman's brother) to take a nice relaxing trip to a summer cabin. I say relaxing almost sarcastically here, because from the absolute start, the brother is making stupid comments, mostly directed at the husband. I guess he thinks that the way to make his sister feel better is to constantly nag her husband about everything from his car to his shoes. The nagging is constant, it's not clever or witty, and at one point he even goes so far to tell her that her husband will leave her to become an alcoholic. All of this "jokingly." Over the course of the next hour, the three meet a local girl, and there is a montage of vacation scenes. They play scrabble, go swimming, drive through town, and have a cookout. This occurs on different days. The only creepiness is shown at night when:The camera turns itself on at night revealing lights/screaming that no one seems to remember in the morning. The vacationers notice a bright light off in the woods that they idly remark on before completely disregarding. The wife gets nosebleeds. Two of them. One's pretty bad. That's it. In the last 10 minutes, you get all the action. Once again, the brother awakens at night to hear screaming and lights from his sister's room. He runs into the hallway and bangs on their door before falling unconscious (somehow turning the camera off.) The next day, no one remembers anything and they have a cookout. The wife falls lethargic and when her husband goes to comfort her, he notices a lump the size of a thumb running up and down her arm, under the skin. The local girl becomes terrified and runs away. The husband insists that they visit a hospital, but the wife says she is tired, so they all just go to sleep. (?????) That night, the lights and screaming come again, but this time the brother manages to knock down the door. He sees the husband hanging suspended in the air above the bed. As soon as the door comes down, the husband drops, hitting the bed frame. At this point, everyone falls unconscious again and there are no focused shots for the rest of the movie. They wake up in the morning to discover the wife is missing. They drive all over town to look for her. They don't find her, but they do find their local friend. For some reason the camera focuses on her feet as she insists that she hasn't seen the wife and that she's sorry. It is clear she knows something terrifying, but she says nothing. The brother angrily gets back into the car and they drive off into the wilderness, eventually finding the wife in a pine barren. She appears catatonic. They decide to drive home, for some reason still not seeing the need to visit a hospital. As they drive home, night falls. A light suddenly appears in front of the car. The husband gets out and fires some shots into the darkness. A few seconds later, he is thrown into the windshield which shatters, destroying all visibility. The camera is now filming in total darkness. You can see vague shapes in between bouts of static. For a second, you can see the sister being apparently pulled from the car. Then there is a shot of the car from above. The camera then falls to the ground, and a couple seconds later, the brother lands beside it, dead. That's the end of the movie. So, what happened to the baby? Or the mother? Why take a 7 month old fetus? Why not wait 2 more months? Are the aliens following them? If so, why does the local girl seem to know something? The baby was taken from a family in a town hours away from where she lives. Why can the aliens erase memory, but haven't figured out how to erase a video camera? Why start the film with a missing baby if the baby has nothing to do with the plot and never re-appears? These are the parts of the non-story that you don't know.

Expectant mother Liz (Erin Way) wakes to find her nearly-to-term pregnancy has disappeared overnight. When doctors can find no medical explanation for the loss, police treat Liz and her husband Rick (Eric Matheny) as prime suspects in what has now become a missing child case or an inconceivable late stage abortion. Only Rick and Liz's brother, Evan (Ryan Smale) trust her version of events. As word spreads, the young couple is subjected to the unwanted attention of the police and prying neighbors. Evan feels for his sister and, as a film student, begins documenting her story. Even though he can't prove Liz's innocence, he sets out to tell her side of what happened and to set the record straight. To relieve some of Liz's grief, Rick and Evan take her on a vacation to the mountains. Things begin to settle down and Liz's spirits even start to improve. But as Evan continues documenting their vacation, unusual patterns arise. Liz still has no real answers for the disappearance of her baby despite his interviews and questions. When the trip spins out of control they realize that whatever happened with Liz and her baby isn't over.Interviewing the victim and getting their perspective was a good idea for a found footage movie. But, when you start running around in the middle of the night with the camera in hand, that's when things start to feel a bit contrived. When I first saw the movie a few weeks back, I was so angry. This movie had so much potential and the makers ruined it. The movie starts off slowly which was perfectly good in my opinion, but there's no payoff in the end, nor is the movie very suspenseful to be honest. The suspense was sprinkled here and there, but wasn't sustained throughout. When the time came for the tension to build and for a worthwhile ending, they blew it big time. The brother gets on your nerves at times with his 'acting' and words, but he's being like that for the sister which is understandable and makes it a bit less irritating. Neither Megan's nor the town's weirdness were explored which was disappointing, to say the least. The acting by Erin Way is very good though and her subdued struggle still burns in my memory. That is the only reason this movie gets any points and feels like it wasn't a complete waste of time. I also did learn that fetal abduction was a real thing, kinda...4/10

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.