Director: Stephen Cognetti
Year: 2015
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Attempting to film a new documentary special, a film crew looks at the scene of a tragic accident at a retrofitted hotel that was intended to be a Halloween attraction and follows the initial experience of a crew trying to prepare the house for the evening which befell a terrifying experience.
Review:
This here was a rather fun and enjoyable effort. One of the better features here is the fact that this one really manages to generate a strong and impressive atmosphere throughout. Starting with the initial concept of the film about a collection of videos uploaded by a visitor to a haunted attraction in New York films the gradual descent into terror unleashed against the rest of the patrons as a launching point, this one gets off to a great start as the scenes are rather fun with all the creepy happenings occurring amongst the darkness and the chaos it unleashes starting the atmosphere nicely with these scenes forming a bridge to the fake documentary about the incident which is rather fun. Once it moves away from there into the crew preparing the haunted house and detailing their experience trying to get things built, this one follows a more traditional found-footage type of film which details their early exploits within the hotel building everything for the occasion as this shows them deciding on the preparations, figuring out how to get the decorations up and going behind-the-scenes of the shoot to really ramp up the atmosphere of the building.
That some of the encounters later on in the basement of the house as they set up, from the encounter with the strobing lights, the disappearing dolls, and rearranged rooms leading to the group disappearing as it starts in on what's going to happen to the group. Leading into the opening night performance that ties into the chaos shown earlier gives this a truly enjoyable piece of action that signals a frenetic and crazed final half which is a great way to fully cap off a fine ending note. That these manage to give this a rather strong atmosphere throughout here is what really gives this a lot to like, as the whole thing going wrong leads to a really creepy feel here.
While these here manage to hold it up, it does have some problems with it. The biggest issue with this one is the exceptionally slow pacing here which really drains the energy from the film. Not only does that include the scenes of an incredibly long time before any of the demonic activity begins but it really begins to feel like the whole affair is slowly being dragged along to a rather slow crawl as the majority of the film doesn't really feature much at all happening. That this is intercut with the cutbacks to the other figures talking about the incident does seem to slow this one down at times.
As well, the other big issue with the film is the rather confusing narrative here where it's nearly impossible to tell what's going on at the end, as the action seems to just occur without any kind of explanation. There's not much here that makes sense and it just seems to be freaky incidents without much in the way of explanation or reason and it just makes the whole thing feel confusing as to what's going on more than anything. Otherwise, this one was quite fun.
Overview: ****/5
A solid and highly enjoyable found-footage effort, this one manages to be immensely fun and outright chilling in places that enable it to hold itself up quite likely over a few minor drawbacks present. Those who are fans of the approach taken here, enjoy found-footage films, or are curious about it will have the most to like here while most others out there might want to heed caution with this one.
Comments
Post a Comment