Really a massive disappointment. I had read over on a blog that this film would "restore my faith in horror films". I read all over the internet about just how great this film was. So I spent ten dollars to view it last night.
The found footage idea isn't wholly a terrible idea, the problem is that it just doesn't usually work. By usually, I mean ever. Horror as a genre has been falling apart at the seams for years, and the advent of "found- footage" certainly hasn't helped. In fact, it feels like it's making a mockery out of horror rather than restoring it to glory.
Enough about that. Regarding the film: The first problem we get here is that the writers/directors have two hours to piece together six cohesive stories. That's fine, but if that's the case, we need to only focus on the important stuff here. Half the time, you'll feel like you're watching some stranger's home movie collection. It's drab, it's boring, it doesn't serve to build suspense, it just drags. You see, when we only get twenty minutes with characters, we don't give a hoot about what they're like. All footage should serve the story, and it just doesn't here. So yes, a lot of the film dragged and a lot of the film was boring.
The second huge problem: the scary stuff. There isn't enough of it. There isn't enough that was supposed to be there in the first place, and most of what you get is just goofy. There were a few jump scares that weren't done all that effectively due to some of the worst camera work the world has ever seen. We understand that this is supposed to be amateur shot footage. That doesn't mean people film themselves walking around with friends while wildly waving their arms around like a complete lunatic. So when you aren't sure what you're looking at and your eyes are constantly struggling to adjust, the few jump scares that were put in the film no longer serve a purpose.
I'm not sure if my next complaint should be lodged against the actors or the writers. Maybe both? All of the characters, I mean ALL of the characters, are incredibly unlikable or plain bothersome. There's a character that basically just cackles through an entire story. There's a character that has no personality aside from leaving her mouth agape at all times. So yeah, the acting was pretty bad, but the writing was probably the worst part of the whole thing. One story in particular was such a joke on the writing front, we couldn't contain our laughter watching it. Not because it was supposed to be funny either.
So here we have six basically nonsensical and incomprehensible stories that lack direction, character, motivations or scares and we throw it all together to create one low-res pile of crap. We have scenes that make NO SENSE in regards to how it ended up on a VHS tape, uninspired concepts, terrible camera work, and just terrible writing.
Here is another Paranormal Activity: TONS of hype, great press and reviews, but underneath all of that is a really uniquely awful film. I'm serious; I thought it was really that bad. Uniquely awful in just how inept and uninspired it is.
Want a compilation horror film that tries to tackle a few sub-genres of horror? Try Trick-R-Treat. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was enjoyable and well written. V/H/S is something I hope dies and people forget about by Christmas. What an awful, awful film.
The found footage idea isn't wholly a terrible idea, the problem is that it just doesn't usually work. By usually, I mean ever. Horror as a genre has been falling apart at the seams for years, and the advent of "found- footage" certainly hasn't helped. In fact, it feels like it's making a mockery out of horror rather than restoring it to glory.
Enough about that. Regarding the film: The first problem we get here is that the writers/directors have two hours to piece together six cohesive stories. That's fine, but if that's the case, we need to only focus on the important stuff here. Half the time, you'll feel like you're watching some stranger's home movie collection. It's drab, it's boring, it doesn't serve to build suspense, it just drags. You see, when we only get twenty minutes with characters, we don't give a hoot about what they're like. All footage should serve the story, and it just doesn't here. So yes, a lot of the film dragged and a lot of the film was boring.
The second huge problem: the scary stuff. There isn't enough of it. There isn't enough that was supposed to be there in the first place, and most of what you get is just goofy. There were a few jump scares that weren't done all that effectively due to some of the worst camera work the world has ever seen. We understand that this is supposed to be amateur shot footage. That doesn't mean people film themselves walking around with friends while wildly waving their arms around like a complete lunatic. So when you aren't sure what you're looking at and your eyes are constantly struggling to adjust, the few jump scares that were put in the film no longer serve a purpose.
I'm not sure if my next complaint should be lodged against the actors or the writers. Maybe both? All of the characters, I mean ALL of the characters, are incredibly unlikable or plain bothersome. There's a character that basically just cackles through an entire story. There's a character that has no personality aside from leaving her mouth agape at all times. So yeah, the acting was pretty bad, but the writing was probably the worst part of the whole thing. One story in particular was such a joke on the writing front, we couldn't contain our laughter watching it. Not because it was supposed to be funny either.
So here we have six basically nonsensical and incomprehensible stories that lack direction, character, motivations or scares and we throw it all together to create one low-res pile of crap. We have scenes that make NO SENSE in regards to how it ended up on a VHS tape, uninspired concepts, terrible camera work, and just terrible writing.
Here is another Paranormal Activity: TONS of hype, great press and reviews, but underneath all of that is a really uniquely awful film. I'm serious; I thought it was really that bad. Uniquely awful in just how inept and uninspired it is.
Want a compilation horror film that tries to tackle a few sub-genres of horror? Try Trick-R-Treat. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was enjoyable and well written. V/H/S is something I hope dies and people forget about by Christmas. What an awful, awful film.