Director: Richard Mansfield
Starring: Matthew Hunt, Daniel Mansfield, Kathryn Redwood, . UK . 1h 14m
I’m a proud defender of found footage and was eager to see this new british indie horror, it follows Nick Greene (Hunt) who’s an amature film maker, recording his own film of his move from London to Nottingham. The Movie starts strong and has many merits but .. It’s a PG 13 and doesn’t really give the chills that I was expecting,
As he settles into his quaint miniature historic cottage, he has two weeks before he starts work, after a brief encounter with his lovely neighbour Emma (Redwood) he’s back to filming his adventures in his new hometown. Visiting some of the local attractions he’s more mystified by what’s going on back at home. Emma gifts him a small craft pouch, something that her sister makes for good luck, he’s been instructed to hang it in his home to ward of evil spirits, after hearing some scratching in the walls and ceiling, he finds a similar more pungent pouch in the loft but the noises stop… but this is only the beginning.
I have to sing praises to the fact that the movie doesn’t rely heavily on CGI for it’s scares and while it’s stepping in to well known terrority, it does try to address proper issues within the found footage but ends up committing the other sins, cameras go on the blink when anything happens, some of the filming is not all the convincing, but it makes a fairly convincing ghostly story, but the set ups are so terribly obvious.
On the flip side it’s just not scary, I didn’t realise the rating until the end but it’s a PG13, and it does feel like it was made for the age group at times, in one scene Nick is cooking in the kitchen and his motion sensored camera picks up on something and moves to the living room door where there’s a silhouette! OH NO it’s clearly just a person standing on the other side of the door, the curtain just happens to be up, I was expecting a kid running by with a sheet over their head for the finale. There are some creepy moments, and with some well timed sound effects it creates a few chills, one example is when Nick is in bed, and much like Paranormal Activity he’s sleeping with a night vision camera in his bedroom and this “spectre” appears there’s a bit of a jump scare there but it’s just a hoodie with a cheap joke shop mask and so the fear just evaporated from the scene onwards.
It’s a good effort but I feel that more could have been added and this would have been a proper indie gem.
Rating: 3/10
R: the Possession of Michael King (2014) Paranormal Activity (2007)
Admit One Film Addict 