Director: Josh Stiffler
Year: 2019
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
After his video-blogger career dies out, a hapless loser intrigued by the paranormal and cryptids finds the potential scoop of a lifetime investigating a strange creature sighted on a local’s property, but once he and a friend get there find the devious nature of their summoning to put them in danger.
Review:
There isn’t much to like here as even the positives aren’t that good. Most of these features are centered around the final half hour where this one finally turns into a genre effort for the first time and delivers on the genre promise of its storyline. Taking a gruesome turn involving the fates of both individuals, the film’s decision to split them up and offer up several intriguing and gruesome outcomes for the guys in this section offers a lot of fun here where it delves into a mad doctor experimenting on the physical body that offers a fine series of make-up work on the creatures or the fun chase through the woods with the creatures chasing them. This all comes across as the only impressive part of the film due to the use of genuinely creepy effects-work and solid action depicting the crazy shenanigans playing out here.
There are some big problems to be had with this one. The main detriment to be had here is the generally underwhelming and unappealing pace throughout here where it takes way too long to get to the interesting factors of the story. The first half that focuses not just on their failed vlog but his depressing social life living with his mother with no friends or respect in the industry goes on way too long to be of any kind of enjoyment, and by hammering home factors that don’t make this one any more appealing for the main characters. These are instead energy-draining and irritating by holding up the pace of what’s going on which is just as dull and repetitive as the scenes of them going through the woods unable to find anything useful to film which just makes for a generally bland experience.
On top of these factors, there are a few other issues here that manage to hold this one down. While the video that gets them out to the woods to investigate matters is quite effective, there’s very little to tell that as the decision to both film it in black-and-white and focus on an irritating glare across the screen makes it nearly impossible to see what’s going on which renders the main selling point of the film’s story a literal waste of a scene. Moreover, the whole point of the finale makes no sense as the entire thing revolves around an utterly uninteresting and unworthwhile surgical procedure that goes unexplained as to the whole purpose beyond cryptic pseudo-intellectual nonsense that doesn’t make any of their actions all the more intriguing. Alongside a confusing show-draining animation sequence for a random backstory, there are some detrimental factors at play here.
Overview: 0.5/5
A massively underwhelming and disappointing genre effort, that this one could’ve been fun but ends up being let down by its flaws is what causes this one allows it to sink as low as it does. Really only look into this one if you’re curious about this one due to its style and approach but most others who are turned off by the drawbacks should definitely heed caution if not outright avoid.
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