Director: József Gallai
Year: 2016
Country: Hungary/USA/United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Serial Killer
Plot:
Enraged over their breakup, a homicidal man decides to document the process leading up to the date which he intends to kill his girlfriend and her new beau, and as the day approaches that he can put his plan into motion he finds his sanity snapped and doing the deed.
Review:
This was a fairly enjoyable if flawed genre effort. When this one works rather well is in the highly intriguing and unusual setup that involves his day-to-day life in trying to set up the fateful murder. The step-by-step process of detailing how it’s going to go down, from the initial background stalking info he takes on her to the more personal aspects including the cyber-stalking, integration into their personal life and the details that have to be sorted out for the scenario to play out are quite intriguing. As well, the frazzled nature and single-minded desire to see the project through requiring plenty of steps that might get him caught or expose the plans for others adds quite a lot to this one, especially as it unfolds and the tension over whether the events will take place. Once it all comes to a head, the payoff that comes from the meticulous build-up and general psychopathy that emerged previously all give the film a lot to like.
There are some slight issues to be had with this one. The main problem with the film is that, despite the best efforts to the contrary, the film seems to think that the action taken here is justified when it doesn’t mean anything. The specific points about the break-up that drove him to finally murder her and her boyfriend are so glossed over that it’s hardly an important point as we don’t know what’s going on there. The fact that this one doesn’t offer any kind of notice about that particular point, a critical part of making the audience sympathetic towards this deranged and unhinged main character, is missing here allowing for an odd disconnect to his mission which makes the quest feel tonally at odds with the concept here. Combined with the brief length that feels longer than it is due to the strange inclusion of unnecessary scenes that keep the main sequence until quite late in the film, these end up holding it back somewhat.
Overview: ***/5
An enjoyable enough found-footage effort that works quite nicely in that regard but is still somewhat undone by several small factors which are detrimental enough to be damaged slightly, the film emerges as a fun genre effort. This is mainly for found-footage genre fanatics or those that appreciate the type of serial killer effort while others who are turned off by those factors or turned off by the flaws should heed caution.
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