drugaddictsinthejungle
This has turned out to be really long, sorry. I've tried to keep the paragraphs short.My housemate brought me some DVDs back from a charity shop and I knew I had to watch this one first, having preliminarily checked out a few reviews. I knew I needed to watch it before I ran out of beer and it potentially became unbearable. So at least with the beer, I don't want to hazard an opinion on without it yet, it wasn't entirely unwatchable.I was expecting a completely first-person hand-held thing, and I was a bit confused as to whether it was or not throughout most of the (nicely modest) running time, trying to work out whether a shot was supposed to be third-person or via a security camera or something. The video was apparently 25 fps but it seemed higher.But I came to the conclusion that some of it probably was intended to be third-person - because of sequences I'll go into in a minute and one shot which DID show "Surveillance Cam 16", which suggests the other stationary shots WEREN'T surveillance cams, if you see what I mean. I think part of the confusion stemmed from the general lack of differentiation between the two.The sequences I mentioned exactly a minute ago though were mainly attempted copies of the effects of other films, notably The Ring, which was of course a copy of Ring. And other shots with a bit of post-production work that would have been fairly effective, if derivative, if the rest of the film was presented in a similar way. Other notable digital effects included computer screens that weren't really on but which appeared to be on, but which you, reader, could probably do better given ten minutes in GIMP.Although I found myself not bothering to listen to most of the dialogue after a while, the religious, anti-science thing was weird and I didn't like it. I wouldn't actually have minded it I suppose if it was well-presented and worked in the context of the film, but because of lines like - and this is from a doctor (of something) apparently - "We only use 70% of our brains. We still don't know what the other 30% is for." (70% is even lower than the common fallacy of 90%.)This is followed up by a psychology student saying, "It literally is dormant for all practical purposes ... I mean, there have even been cases where the human brain has been able to project images on to unexposed film, for crying out loud!" My sister just graduated from a psychology degree and she wouldn't say anything like that.Oh and then another doctor (working in "Computer Science R&D", so she'd know) says "There's criss-crossing EM fields all over the earth. It's theorised that when a person walks through one of these EMF cages, it traps the electric impulses firing in their brain, in much the same way as you'd download a file to your home hard drive."Sorry, I'm giving away all the best lines. No no wait, just a couple more:"There's a whole nother world out there. While we're here fighting and killing on this plane, the real battle's out there, you know, between heaven and hell, for our immortal souls." (Nods meaningfully as the camera holds.)And: "One of the bees moved."But the ones more along the lines of "There's no such thing as an inhuman. We've proved/proved (unclear because the actor doesn't enunciate the word too well) it before, and I'll prove it again," where a scientist wouldn't claim to be able to prove the nonexistence of something, just that there wasn't enough evidence to suggest the existence of it...lines like that meant that any religious counterargument was baseless and thus unconvincing.But yeah, bits of it (including in fact the "I can't believe they actually said that, what are they talking about?" moments) were at least entertaining, even funny now and then. Like this bit (last time, I promise):A character at the bottom of some stairs kicks a stair, apparently on purpose, I don't know why (well I do know why, I'm being facetious: he was supposed to have stubbed his toe accidentally), which hurts of course, so he says "Argh, argh," to which the man with the biggest arms (and everyone likes big arms), who's made it successfully to the top of the stairs, replies "Stop being a biiitch. Come on!"And there's a funny possession of a woman.The acting's variable, but a lot of it's like if your friend was in an am-dram production and you enjoyed watching them because you like seeing them doing things that make them happy, and you congratulated them and said they were really good but you were being a bit kind. The cast's a bit bloke-heavy but unfortunately the female actors tended to be some of the least good at the acting thing.The lighting of the sets was pretty stagey too, and what everyone else said about the plinky piano music, they weren't exaggerating, but the more electronic stuff that's largely in the end credits was fine, I would have preferred more of that.Just over an hour into the thing there's what is apparently a helicopter shot, which I thought must be CG, then I thought it wasn't, which was a bit jarring because it presumably cost as much as the rest of the production put together. I mean I grew up on Troma, I have nothing against low production values, but this one didn't seem as self-aware as it needed to be.To its credit, the last minute recalled the end of, for its numerous sins possibly the first one of these films, Cannibal Holocaust.But bottom line, I wouldn't recommend it.
mavtutz
The camera work was not bad for a movie probably made on a budget. The acting was pretty good as well to say they were mostly unknowns. I'd say the only down side was the ending which leaves you hanging. This is one of those movies you have to keep watching or you'll miss some action. The effects aren't bad at all. Good story line, not half as bad as some reviewers make out, put it this way ... I've seen a lot worse!!!!! Great locations, spooky enough to draw you into the ghost hunting atmosphere. A great movie to watch on Halloween as a taster for more scary stuff later on. There's no sex scenes, no nudity and very mild language compared to some stuff on the TV right now so as long as it's vetted first, older kids would enjoy it too.
trnjamesbond
With the production being from VVS Films I was a little weary. But I didn't mind the film. I thought the back story subtitled narration was a strong point. The acting from Josh Folan seems very sincere and the acting from the surrounding cast is very acceptable.Now I've been watching this company VVS Films spit out a lot of garbage in the earlier years with bad actors being hired straight from high school it seemed, and the writing of most of their earlier production films were terrible. I'm surprised they are still around. I stayed away from any film made by VVS Films and now I stumbled upon this excellent well written and well produced B movie gem. Not bad at all I must say! The ghost scenes were pretty cool, especially the bloody girl in the hospital hallway that seemed to be the creepy girl from "The Grudge", but still it wasn't that bad of a scene, being already done before. The film grade seemed not too bad at times, but earlier on in the film it was a little too low grade.Especially when the hosts of the show meet with the guy that wants them to investigate the insane asylum as his last request before he dies, the scene was too brightly lit, the background was a really noticeably fake New York background, and the acting from the guy requesting this reality show to do the investigation was really bad, also his lawyer was terrible at acting, he also looked like he has hair plugs from some early 1990's hair transplant that went wrong.The religious camera crew seemed a little weak with the "medium". But all in all not bad. The Scottish actor performance was really decent, he had a funny one liner when introduced.As a fan of low budget films this one didn't seem that bad as a VVS production, they acquired some really talented actors/actresses, and the writing was well done, as for short scripts go. The acting seemed to get stronger as the film went on. If only the film grade were darker and more gritty, this would of went to most theatre's. The score of the film seemed a little ridiculous at times but understandable considering the budget restraints.The funny thing is there is definitely more terrible high budget films going to the big screen than this one...........
