People are voting emotionally.
Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
View MoreInstead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
View MoreYes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
View MoreSo I ran across two movies that seemed pretty similar; this and The Levenger Tapes. They're both found footage and I decided to go with this one first, after reading some reviews and seeing this also had a YouTube series, I figured it would be the better of the two. After watching them both, I highly recommend the Levenger Tapes over this. I found this pretty boring and started falling asleep at the end. This just didn't add anything new to the found footage genre. The whole "evil entity only visible through a camera" has already been done, so nothing exciting here. There's not really anything in particular that makes the movie awful, but nothing makes it entertaining either. Just overall boring with a played out premise.
View MoreNo intentional spoilers.A little backstory: Marble Hornets is the name of a YouTube channel with found footage "episodes" based around the Slenderman mythos. The YouTube series felt like a student film or just a hobby project, but I found it entertaining and interesting. This movie, if I understand right, is based on that series but not a part of it. I don't see mention of the creators of the YouTube channel as a part of this project, but it felt very similar in experience.The premise was decent: A figure with a featureless face wearing a black suit can only be seen using a camera and follows people. Weird and bad things happen. Beyond that, there's no real meat to the story and it's not nearly as scary as it could be. The acting was not bad at all. I was pleasantly surprised by the performances. For a found footage based film, I think they did a great job of editing it down so you didn't get too bored watching it. I did get tired of the scenes where the characters were just yelling at each other, though. My biggest complaint were the Slenderman related scenes. The original, incredibly low budget YouTube series looked better and felt scarier! That being the bulk of the reason for and entertainment value of the movie, it's unacceptable that it was so poorly done. I could get past it because I like these kinds of stories and movies, but I don't think a lot of people will be as forgiving. It's basically a monster movie where the monster takes a backseat which is why I think fans of the Slenderman mythos and horror movies in general may be disappointed in this movie. I think people who like the Paranormal Activity movies will get some entertainment out of this, but if that's not your thing, this movie probably isn't for you.
View MoreThis movie may resonate more to those who are familiar with Slenderman or Marble Hornets web series, practically anyone who has interest in internet creepypastas. The transition for cinema uses hit-and-miss medium of found footage, but at least it justifies them to constantly carry cameras. It's nothing much from usual found footage cliché and for what it's worth, it may be mildly amusing when it runs its course.A group of journalists investigates abandoned houses to document foreclosure process. They find a collection of tapes in one of the houses, which display a sort of haunting entity. Soon this lanky ghostly man starts to haunt them as well. Underneath the suit and modern gimmicks, the movie is pretty much mediocre haunting, only extensively recorded.It presents the usual tension with dark corners and lingering object that may or may not be present. There's an effort to bring more tech stuff as parts of tension, yet it's no more than Grave Encounters and the likes have done. In some scenes it can get pretty immersive and intense, although these instances are too brief and certainly not that many.Flaws that have plagued this subgenre are unfortunately here and they are clearer than the flickering apparition. It's all too common when the situation escalates, characters would scream at the same time to emulate real life debacle. Filmmakers should know by now that it's very overwhelming and unappealing to have first person perspective of bickering, and this movie does it in excess.Cumbersome shots, particularly slow motion and a couple of jittery scenes are expected although not exactly welcomed. It may work as popcorn flick, but the stale use of the subgenre doesn't invoke much fascination.
View MoreAlways Watching is another addition to the preponderance of found footage movies within the horror genre. I was getting tired of this gimmick a good number of years ago, but it obviously isn't going anywhere...and when it works it actually does end up leading to some worthwhile movies. This one is a bit of a loose take on the internet-created Slenderman trope, arguably the first entirely crowd sourced urban legend. The antagonist is referred to as The Operator rather than Slenderman, though the parallels are transparent. In this movie the antagonist only shows up on camera and a news crew working on a story about a family that disappeared happens across home videos that they are scouring for any information regarding the disappearance. The cameraman begins experiencing some encounters that have him (and his coworkers) questioning his sanity and he begins taking his video camera with him everywhere he goes. Though the human naked eye doesn't seem to he capable of seeing The Operator, the camera man's dog seems to see it just fine. I won't bother with drawing any correlations between this movie and the Marble Hornets' short films, because there isn't really a whole hell of a lot that actually connects them beyond the use of the name The Operator in place of Slenderman. There isn't anything new or really inspired in this movie to set it apart from other found footage titles, though it does have some good tense moments and a few decent jump scares. If you're looking for a creepier, more unnerving Slenderman experience, I would recommend playing the video game Slender: The Arrival, which has both a better atmosphere and more effective jump scares (in addition to being interactive, which is quite a bit more immersive). The movie isn't horrible, and the acting is pretty good for the sort of low budget found footage movie it is...so it isn't a waste of time to watch. But if you are looking for something that might be actually scary or really interesting I would recommend waiting for the upcoming CreepyPasta movie directed by Clive Barker. I suspect that his treatment of the Slenderman story will be be far superior.
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