Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Sadly Over-hyped

Good concept, poorly executed.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Spoiler Alert!This review contains spoilers, but let's be honest if it's 2016 and you haven't seen this stretched out short do not see it now. Go your own way, awful things lurk here.Things like: No character motivation, why do these characters (especially after one if almost raped) continue to pursue this dead end adventure when they are clearly being stalked? Why are they filming it? One says he was a film school drop out, but not everyone who set foot in film school films everything.Why are they being stalked? If so many millions of people go to haunts each year why is this group chosen for the blue skeleton? There is an indication that some of the staff at the first haunt are stalking them because they made an ill advised decision to proclaim their love of Halloween from the roof top of a haunt, but that's not explored any deeper.Was that last haunt actually the blue skeleton or some murder cult that tricked them? This is one of those questions that would have made the movie better.Who wrote the script? Everyone behind a mask sounds like the same guy trying to sound southern, but has never heard a southern accent. Every haunt worker who adds to the plot sounds like this. The ending is so bad that it's not even certain who dies. Being buried alive is everyone's worst nightmare, but its been in so many movies that you need some kind of special twist to make it intriguing anymore. On top of that, the crazy haunt workers who bury them don't act very crazy, they basically bury them in about three feet of dirt them smoke a cigarette and talk about what's for lunch, which probably wasn't even a terrifying meal of people! They probably just went to Denny's and had pancakes like a normal family, which still would have been creepier than the actual ending!They might have cut off one character's tongue, but you never see the tongue or really even know if that's what happened. They might have cut up one fella with a chain saw, but then you see him getting buried alive.I thought that they may have been going for some ambiguity, but they set up very terrifying questions and then instantly answer them, and leave really boring questions unanswered. Did any haunts actually use real corpses? Who knows...On top of the terrible script, lack of character motivation, poor attempt at ambiguity, and ending where they did literally every right thing wrong, the actors (who might have been great with a good script or entirely different movie) were all cookie cutters of each other. Every male except Mike is the exact same character. So much so that by the middle of the movie I couldn't figure out who was who. Mike is only different because he is a little bit dumber, has red hair and a beard. Brandy had a chance of standing out, but turned into a lackluster version of a female co-star.This is the first review I've ever written so go easy on me. If my review is awful consider the source material. If you skipped then entire review to find the point at the end, here is the point.Do not watch this movie. It's awful.

Five hard drinking friends go on a booze-fuelled roadtrip looking for the most extreme haunted house experience America's backcountry has to offer. It's actually a fantastic premise as the film-makers are able to play with loads of creepy imagery, ratcheting up the tension without shooting their bolt too soon. The assumption is that none of it is real, but underlying these visits is the tension that... what if they aren't? For a low-budget film the acting and the script is really good. Found footage always benefits from believable characters exchanging natural dialogue, which is what you get here without a doubt. Some of the back and forth is actually pretty funny and at times I found myself chuckling along; which I think is a good thing in a horror film as it builds a rapport between the viewer and characters, which draws you into their world. It's a pretty slow film all told and the last act spoiled the build up for me, leaving me rather unsatisfied. Was I sad I watched it though? Hell no! This film is all about the tension and the imagery. The uncertainty, the questioning of what's real and what isn't. It isn't perfect, but with a few simple tweaks and a better ending, it could have been. If you like horror and you like found footage, this film will totally entertain you. If you liked the trailer and you're sitting on the fence, get off that fence and stick it on. It gets more right than wrong, some of the scenes are so downright creepy they'll be knocking around in my psyche for some time to come.

The Houses October Built is another found-footage movie that's documenting a number of haunted house attractions until they visit the scariest one out there, but then realized that they're being followed by the actors of the attractions. This could be a solid concept for a fun horror schlock and to be fair the costumes of these strange people can be creepy. Even to this day, we tend to admire this practical horror, but the problem immediately lies on the technique. It never works, the camera tries its hardest to be inept, because ineptitude equals realism, apparently. But its incoherence is what makes this supposed simple horror film thoroughly unwatchable, no matter what commentary they try to put through, it still makes no sense.The opening and some moments, probably every ten minutes or so, features a number of interviews from those who visited the attractions. Showcasing those attractions are basically like those you see on Youtube, except the camera-work is purposely trying to make us not see the exhibits as possible. But the real horror comes is when the monsters from the ride start following them. That can be creepy in some sorts, but we immediately segues to some of the most uninteresting characters that you may commonly see in this genre. I mean really, what arc and what personality will we ever identify these people? The movie enjoys spinning wheels to them and there is still nothing exciting or likable about them.The least dragging parts are whenever they encounter their enemies, like they just appear from nowhere, but even there they get things wrong. The continuity of these scenes are vague, yeah it's found-footage, but who's shooting this? Also, why are these people so bad at shooting these things? More specifically, the ones that are supposed to be scary. Are they trying to do the Jaws approach where less is more, except they have to be annoyingly awful at shooting stuff? I'm sure they're no professional documentarians, but why? Yeah, I complain about some well- shot found-footage films, but there was a time when this genre manages to be convincing by just shaking the camera while capturing the visuals right. In fact, if these people are trying to follow this "realistically amateur" filmmaking approach, then why are their microphones sound so perfect? I can nitpick whatever I want, BUT WHY CAN'T THESE PEOPLE SHOOT ANYTHING RIGHT?!Alright, the few good things: the little girl is kinda legitimately creepy. The editing does get needlessly gimmicky with the camera glitches (is the girl an alien or something?), but yeah, she must stay away from me as far as possible. I couldn't tell if the acting is any good since the movie didn't give me any chance to get sucked into the writing. The costumes are effectively eerie and it's possible to get terrified by those whenever they try to attack the main characters, if only they were shot right.The Houses October Built is your standard found-footage, and when I say standard, as in the ones that are just too lazy to make any novelty scares and it's a shame because a bunch of costumed Halloween people has potential of being at least creepy, and how they're designed is kind of promising (needs more killer giant rabbit.) But again, the plot makes no sense, the characters are dry empty and the camera-work is one of the reasons why found-footage should be a crime now. These ideas could work actually, I wouldn't mind having some guy holding a camera being chased by masked psychopaths, but again, lead it to the professionals. The Houses October Built is just a boring mess. And the title cards also countdown to the day when climax happens, which rather felt like a number of tortures you'll have to take from its ultimate ineptitude and unwatchability. And it doesn't give you any worthy payoff, either. I guess that's the real horror they're trying to offer.

Nevermind the actual film, the idea is one of the most potent I've seen in some time.A group of friends set out in a van in search of horror, haunted house attractions scattered around rural America. It's the days leading up to Halloween so we can have a pervasive atmosphere of masks and monsters roaming the streets. I like that it's a glimpse outside the usual and tied to a larger fabric of make-believe.The idea is that we'll venture into these houses where horror is supposed to be controlled around us, the work of fiction, only to discover more slippery boundaries of truth. This would touch at the very essence of horror, exploiting the same perturbations that move viewers in both the actual houses and film; see, we know it's not real, but what to do when your body tells you otherwise?So nevermind that it's actors we see and scripted reactions. Some of the most potent footage here are from within these houses where we go in with a camera and a swirl of monsters lunges at us, staged but it comes alive. I'm guessing these are actual places that partnered with the filmmakers and this is what tantalized me going in; it would be at least in part an actual tour of that America that goes to pilgrimage in actual places.They manage to bungle this for my taste, the part where fiction blurs and we go to something that comes alive in the moment of watching.For one, they chose the "found footage" mode (silly name, largely the baggage of Blairwitch - it really means "someone is filming this now"). It's the most apt choice I've seen since Last Exorcism, but no one ever films a sense of place and passing time, a physical sense of journey; they waste it on lots of blathering around a camera so that it ends up feeling like an episode of cable TV. Indicative of the actual makers holding the camera I guess.And then there's the ending. This is where the staged scenarios in these attractions don't cut it any more as the characters push for more and more "real" stuff. Lo, there's rumor of a secret place that you can only reach by invitation. But once there, it's the most obviously staged part of the film, the complete opposite of where we were meant to be viewing-wise.So this is a miss, filmmakers with maybe the strongest idea of any of their peers this year but none of the tools of insight to cultivate it. They outline enough for me to imagine it in more intuitive hands so all in all I would have this over the next paranormal film.Someone has gone out with the urge for horror in mind (and it's our very urge to inhabit illusion that made us build these houses), thinking he knows illusion from real, but it begins to spill outside, perturbing reality. From a certain point on, the apparitions become aware of someone watching, aware inside the fiction, so conspire to stage the real thing as a cosmic prank that shatters lives.Watch The Funhouse, Hooper's film driven by the same instinct, a funhouse that extends from the actual place to haunt the whole film.