Strong and Moving!

Fantastic!

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I'm a big fan of found footage films. I don't mind bad effects or occasional shakiness, and can even let people get away with not-great acting if the story is good enough. But, by the Lord, this movie is atrocious and is deserving of every bad review on here.What annoyed me the most was the portrayal of the teenage girls in this film, considering they showed up more than the actual protagonist or the plot did. It may not be obvious because it's not as in your face as any other overly eye-candy horror film you can think of, and a lot of it is actually pretty natural between girls who are comfortable with each other, but I know for a fact it's not this frequent. I've had friends that are confident in their sexuality, I've giggled over sex with my group, but this director must honestly believe that the female sex doesn't go a single moment in their life without discussing how they want to make out with each other (but are totally straight so don't worry boys, they're still available to you!) or how big their boobs are.Within the opening scene, our protagonist (can't remember his name for the life of me) is having a birthday party, in which his cousin and group of friends rip off their bikini tops and most of everyone hoots and hollers. In any other setting, I'd get it. People party hard, but...at a family party? Flashing your cousin? Your own father discussing how hot you are? Gross. Then the scene proceeds to go into the kitchen, where some family member mentions in passing that their "house once burned down and people died, no big deal", and that's literally where ghost sh*t starts happening. Really? That's your setting, that's how and why you have this movie, and you deliver it like it's empty filler conversation made for ambiance.The following scenes are just switches between the cousins bickering, the protagonist and his friend finding a dead animal in the forest (strange, as it has no connection to the ghost and I'm to believe that the scene was just added to put out-of-place gore), and the cousin crying as the protagonist films (in which her only concern is that he's in her room rather than he's filming her in obvious agony as if it's entertaining). Every once in a while, we'll get a cheap jumpscare from a ghost that holds no real meaning. Usually in found footage films, we'll see that throughout the film the ghost gets increasingly more violent, so the victims can only think it's something other than the wind when it's already too late. However, in this one it's already possessing people and locking them in basements while the family thinks nothing of it. There's even a time one of the cousin's friends catches the ghost full on camera, and goes to show her friends, just for the next scene to come by and the audience to never get closure on if they already found the ghost out or not. Everyone just pretends it didn't happen.While I'm mentioning the girls, the moment I stopped watching was the scene AFTER the girls closing in on their breasts and squeezing them together happened--when they were all lying on the bed, discussing how they pretend to be lesbians to blow off boys and if they'd ever make out with each other (because, you know, lesbians are so hot hurr hurr), which swiveled off into another close up of a teenager groping her own tiddies and commenting how big she is, which swiveled off into another girl reading a magazine--but with a twist! all the questions are about their favorite sex position!That was the moment I thought that I could be watching ghosts, but instead I'm watching these three girls giggle in typical valley girl tones about coincidental sexual magazine questions and jiggling their boobs for the viewer. I really wish I wasn't going on a rant about the fetishizing of women in something like a horror film, because really I don't mind a sex scene or innuendo here or there, but it's just so blatantly annoying. It doesn't make any sense, it's taking up more scenes than the actual plot is, and it's more fitting for a movie about some highschool boy that's goal in life is to get laid. I simply don't care for it, and it's getting shoved in my face every time these characters show up, which is even more agonizing when it's more frequent than anything in the film.

This is not a good movie, but if you like your movies so bad they're almost good, it's a fun watch to see just how ridiculous it gets. It'd probably go well with a drinking game. Starts off okay, but the plot is weak weak weak. Bodies drop, and people ignore the super obvious haunting stuff and just sort of stick around and ignore all the murders, big obvious monstrous stuff on their video footage, the fact everyone is going nuts, etc. The haunting itself, it's source, is barely touched upon, and all the realism and subtlety that makes a lot of these found footage films work simply doesn't exist here.Once you get past looking for a good film though, you can have fun watching it though. The same lone cop, Bungalon, keeps finding all the bodies. (The fact the spelling of his name makes me think "Bungle On" really fits). The haunting is far more Ghost Shark then it is Paranormal Activity or Blair Witch, the FX often ridiculous, whispering voices super obvious, a ludicrous amount of 911 calls, bodies, etc. The over the top antics of the climax made me laugh out loud.

While the story line is pretty good the sound warnings of something about to happen comes straight from Paranormal Activity. Also there were tons of continuity errors. Such as a door in the dining room that in one scene is a room seems to later bee a shallow closet(mom walks out of it earlier yet in a later scene she puts something in the back of the closet without entering it. ). Additionally what is going on with this kid .. he has footage of the blankets floating early in the film yet it never gets brought up later. Come on folks if I had footage of that happening in my house I would be gone. Also the best acting in my opinion came from the actress playing Dana at the dining room table scene.

This movie is very stupid. Anyone with half the sense would've left when things started happening. When people you know started dying one by one, people would've drove away without packing their bags.When the father started freaking out, the mother must've felt something wrong. Any mother who loves her children would've moved out, regardless or not she loves her husband. When their daughter became like that, the protective instincts of a sane mother would've tried to find help.When their daughter suffered nightmare after nightmare every night, the parents must have felt afraid, they would do something to help, maybe get a counsellor if not a priest.And Brandon? I don't have enough words to say how the character has no sense of time and place. This is the worst kind of irresponsible 'i must film everything no matter what', kind of character. It's like watching Heather Donahue from Blair Witch Project times 5. It's that bad.And what about the days' worth of 4-5 static cameras that was placed. Colby watched it, and he didn't notice anything? Sure, there were a few scares that jumped out at you from time to time, but it was all very much expected. It did made me jump, but most other horror movies made me jump too.It was quite okay, and the actors and actresses did quite well. I put the blame on weak scripts and incompetent director.