Skip to main content

Entity 2012

On a fairly regular basis, I end up watching a type or subgenre of movie that I typically dislike and would avoid. Tonight's accidental viewing? The Entity - which turns out to be a found footage movie. This is actually the type of movie I accidentally watch the most often because it's not always called out in the synopsis.

This should really be a lesson to myself about doing more thorough research before committing to watching a movie.

Alright, taking a step back here, let's do a $.25 plot summary:
A British TV crew from a "ghost hunter" show go exploring in the woods of Russia with a psychic in tow. They uncover a sinister looking building in which the Russian army (apparently) conducted medical experiments on psychics. This outing ends badly for everyone, thankfully (because all of the characters are terribly annoying).

The thing that I found weird about this movie is that it's a found footage movie but there's footage not shot by any of the characters. Had the movie been entirely found footage, I feel like the tension would have been greater and the well-planned "jump scares" could have been effective.

Plus, coming so late in the found footage game, there wasn't much this movie could really offer to "change" or "improve" the subgenre. They even have a moment (about 50 minutes into the movie) that is lifted directly out of The Blair Witch Project (the found footage movie that kicked off our cultural obsession).

Perhaps worse than that is the snail's pace at which this movie progresses. I was literally shouting at the TV, "can these two morons just die already?!" a full 30 or so minutes before the movie ended.

And somewhere along the way (in the last 15 minutes or so) the movie totally goes off the rails and almost turns into a monster movie (instead of a malevolent spirt movie). I guess I don't mind if you want me to believe that these "entities" are killing people but, I don't know that I believe a movie full of jump scares followed by a sloppy, bloody, splattering werewolf-style dismemberment. Either it's a creepy ghost who kills in a mysterious, off-camera way OR it's a FUCKING BEAST who devours your body and soul. I can't believe it's both.

On the plus side, the acting that takes place between shrieking scenes isn't too bad. The woman playing the psychic (Dervla Kirwan), the woman playing the TV reporter (Charlotte Riley), and the man who scammed them all into filming at this oh so haunted location (Branko Tomovic), are all quite good actors. I'd even give them the benefit of watching them in other movies.

To wrap up, let me tell you a quick story:
With 10 minutes remaining in the movie, the screen cuts to black. At this point I turn to my roommate and say, "There's only 10 minutes left - I'm hoping for 10 minutes of credits". When the picture comes back with a closeup on the reporter's face, I nearly shouted, "Shit"!
Okay. I did shout it.

This anecdote was promptly followed by a predictable ending and significantly less than 10 minutes of credits.

Bummer.

Would you like to subject yourself to the trailer? You're welcome to it:
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dark Ride (2006)

Spoilers, typos, and bad grammar ahead. You've been warned. I remember a time when horror was still a relatively underground genre and fans slunk around in the shadows, keeping their fandom to themselves for fear of judgement. Now, it seems everyone and their mother is a horror fan and has something to say about the genre - for better or worse. While this does mean horror movies (and related goodies) are easier for long-time genre fans to get their hands on, it also means an over-saturation of the market (leading to an excess of crap.) It also means tons of great opportunities (like festivals and conventions) have cropped up all over the place.  The After Dark Horrorfest (or "8 Films to Die For") was at the forefront of the horror festival circuit and offered directors (and audiences alike) a terrific venue for checkin out new, original horror films. Pros and cons aside, I've often avoided the movies coming out of this festival - not because of the hype and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

"I live, I love, I slay & I am Content."

Let me tell you a little about myself; something real about the home I grew up in. There were lots of people around all the time. I was the only child. And, thankfully, I wasn't treated as such. Much like today, I was just the shortest member of the household. But what's that really mean? Above and beyond it means that I had many influences growing up. For this entry, my father's influence is the most important. My father loves arms and armor. He loves history and mythology and the art of warfare. And as any good father would, he shared these passions with me as a kid. I remember him making me wooden swords to play with. We played chess together. And I remember him reading me Greek myths and comic books before bed. He also shared his nerdy love of scifi, fantasy, and horror movies with me. For all of this, I am grateful. And I am now passionate about the same things. Spoiler alert: the following statement is not a dick joke. I have a love of swords. And barbarian...
3 comments
Read more

Stage Fright 2014

Stage Fright  is a visual cacophony of mismatched genre images. It's an immensely underwhelming  directorial debut that reads more like a film school project than an actual feature length film. The Gist: Theatre geeks go away to summer camp to sing their hearts out where no one can make fun of them. They attempt to produce something that looks a lot like The Phantom of the Opera and ends just as well for everyone involved. Knowing they are riffing on Phantom of the Opera doesn't make it feel any less like they are really riffing on Scream  or Scary Movie . Capitalizing on the popularity of shitty TV like Glee and the  endless  slew of High School Musical movies, there is very little to take seriously in this movie due to their immature production. I assumed, just by the production values, that it was an independent thing. I kept being thrown by it having a sort of (washed up) famous cast including  Mini Driver . I was surprised to see her in...
Post a Comment
Read more