Such a frustrating disappointment

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Great Film overall

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Plot & Argument: A Phd student researching the history of trade between USA and Mexico in the 1920's stumbles by accident upon some strange documents and a really scary, eerie and terrifying old 8mm movie in Black & White. The docs and 8 mm film contain explicit details and images about a strange group of secretive, fanatical and extremely violent group of devil worshipers, doing a very crude, chilly and realistic ceremony involving ritual murder & Human Sacrifice, with some obscure magical intent. All is filmed in an explicit way. From here, many things happen, and the movie develops the story. The Phd student investigates what happened, and discovers an unsettling story. The story is told in the Witch of Blair project Style.Bad Points of the Movie: The acting is quite bad, except for the 8mm black & white documentary like movie inside the movie.There are some inconsistencies and the script is bad, as well as the end of the movie, which is also very bad in my opinion.Good Points of the Movie: In my opinion, the only good thing about this movie is the excellent documentary-like 8mm movie in Black & White. Here, the acting is convincing, and it has some very scary realism. The devil worshipers are very real, dark, and extremely frightening. The ritual is carried out with great attention to detail, from the beginning to the terrifying end.Conclusion: It is not a great movie. It is actually a bad one. However, it is worth watching it if you like horror movies. The little movie inside the movie contains a unique and ultra-realistic description of a very dark and frightening ritual. This is rare, and not seen before. This part is very well filmed, and it is indeed uncomfortable, uneasy and extremely terrifying to watch. Pity the rest of the movie is not as good as the ritual part.

I saw this film at late night screening in Sitges and once again on DVD. The treatment is that of a documentary/investigation with the crew trying to figure out what happened to a student who obviously stumbled on a sect while doing some research. The film coldly brings out the details of the story with a feeling of gloom and impending doom that is all the more touching that it remains at a human level. There are some lengths in the pace and the general feeling is a bit rough, but what remains is the bone chilling images of a satanic ritual that is at the heart of the story and has an extremely realistic and convincing feel. This part is finely directed in a frightening clinical and voyeuristic way justified by the story. It puts audiences in the position of witnesses of a ritual sacrifice, and uncomfortable position at best and reminds of some gut wrenching historical documents of war or execution, with their no nonsense, non fiction way of showing death with no concern for dramatization as it must be an "objective" report of a dreadful event. If only for the shock this sequence creates when it appears, and reactions of the audiences at the screening were evidence to that sudden change of mood and impact, this film is worth watching.

When both myself and my fiancée heard about the story, we thought this would be a cool movie. We were wrong. They could have made a film about it. They didn't. It's beyond awful. If it was just awful, like "Dracula 3000", we wouldn't have mind. Movies like that is entertaining. This "movie" makes you want to hurl yourself into a brick wall so it won't hurt as much. It tries to be a "documentary" like "The Blair Witch Project", but fails at every level. Unbelievable bad acting, amazingly unbelievable bad acting. And they didn't even bother making the sets or props any convincing. I think the one responsible for those things was under the age of five. And even then I'm not impressed. The "movie" contains so many faults and errors and inconsistencies, that you just give up bothering about them after ten minutes. (SPOILERS!!!) I.e. The main guy, Stephen, is rushed to the hospital at the beginning of the film. He stays there for thirteen days. Not once during his stay do they cover up his cuts and open wounds. Not surprising: he dies.