Comwayon
A Disappointing Continuation
Invaderbank
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Mathilde the Guild
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
mkadams-34956
It sure didn't take very long for me to figure this one out. You would have to as dim as the characters in this film who record themselves committing multiple crimes to be fooled for long. I'm sure they tried to capitalize on false hype in hopes of creating something akin to The Blair Witch Project or the horror films that required you to sign a waiver in case you are scared to death. It just doesn't work. If you are going to try this sort of thing I'd try and make it at least slightly plausible. I wouldn't have bought it as a movie and as reality it's even less likely. Also, the reviews sound a lot like the filmmakers and their false marketing may have had their hands all over them. I'd skip it. You'll never get that time back.
Drew Grimm Van Ess
First of all, I have to mention that I cannot believe that I saw someone online say that this is "One of the greatest movies I've ever seen". I don't know, maybe some people like myself just have higher standards in terms of what constitutes as a great movie. That quote is even more ludicrous than the actual movie.It starts with a lot of summed up footage, showing news reels and clips, interviews, and radio show hosts talking about this mysterious girl doing copious amounts of cocaine on these YouTube clips that leaked online a few years ago. Some rumors even started flying around that it was celebrities. Then there's the name drop of Quentin Tarantino, and his involvement in buying the rights to the video clips, with intent on making a motion picture about them after the girl in the videos, Jackie Spearo, died in a tragic way. Tarantino eventually backed out of using the YouTube videos to make the movie. I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but this whole movie and the controversy behind it is completely a marketing campaign only. There's no truth to it, it's a veil pulled over the viewers eyes to build a fake sense of dread.If you have to trick audiences into liking your movie, that's a false achievement in my book. The feature film will tell you that the videos were uploaded to YouTube as a bribe, and blackmail. When actually, the truth is, the uploads were to cause confusion and start rumors in social media. Having several female celebrities falsely accused of being the faceless woman in the clips, it added mystery and had people wanting answers. The stir it all caused in the media was used to build hype behind The Upper Footage, and make it seem authentic. While it is undoubtedly a rude and aggressive marketing strategy, it worked because moviegoers and people who follow social media outlets actually think it's a true life incident.It's the same exact type of hype that happened when The Blair Witch Project came out, and everyone really thought the actors and actress involved were really dead. What baffles me, is regardless of how real or unreal it is, people really believed they were watching a movie about a dead girl and her last night alive. There's no way this would be released to the public as a motion picture if this were in fact a true event. Some people just aren't as naive as others may think, and can see through a bad lie when they see and/or hear it. This movie ruined people's lives, really?Although I knew the falsity behind the making of The Upper Footage, and despite the fact that it's yet another found footage film, I still gave it a shot. To be quite frank, I was bored for about 75 minutes of the 87 minute run time. It's just a group of rich, racist snobs partying in a limo and and being about as crude and impolite as imaginable. After 25 minutes of nonsense dialogue and the search for a plot, Jackie enters the movie via her date, and her face is pixelated the entire film. The party goes from the limo, to a high-scale apartment, and from there, we get a lot of loud talking/shouting, people acting as annoying as possible, and a ton of drug use. It's the kind of movie where without pausing it, you can get up and get a bite to eat and a drink, pet your cat, check your mail, check your email, and use the bathroom without missing anything of mere close importance.After throwing up profusely, Jackie kicks the bucket. And what do the guys at this party do? They decide to drive her body around for a good thirty minutes (at least it feels as though it were a half hour), all the while recording everything including too much arguing, and whining, and moaning. I gave this flick a fair chance, but any and all entertainment value is lost on me because, I was not amused. I wouldn't think that someone's tragic death and the need to cover the incident up should be so loud ad boring.Then, we get to watch the lead male characters dig a hole for eternity. Most of which is in silence, giving you plenty of time to send a text or check your email again.I'd rather attend a tax seminar than watch this ever again. I don't believe in the hype behind it, and it fails to entertain on almost every level. That is of course, unless your idea of a good movie entails nothingness for 75 minutes, and maybe 10 minutes of watchable footage.
christopher-dallas-113-229541
"The Upper Footage"It wasn't just bad, it was annoying.Had it been made prior to "The Blair Witch Project" and just a short film made by a group of friends with a good camera, it would be OK.I want to state all kinds of negative one-liners but that's not being objective and will get ignored. s in the Found Footage genre were was, "The Blair Witch Project." Quite a few of my co-workers thought that Blair Witch was real. That was due in part to the multimedia campaign elements such as the website.The Spanish film, ".REC" was great. It was engaging from beginning to end. Not that a real budget necessarily matters but it had about $1.8 million and the money was widely spent.I found V/H/S to be better than this and that movie received poor reviews. It was crudely filmed but then so was The Blair Witch project but it wasn't dishonest.I was misled by the list of positive reviews by Internet critics on the Vimeo site as well as the user reviews.I'll stop short of accusing the film makers of using their own people as shills. For all of the dishonesty, lack of creativity and lack of entertainment value, I'm giving this a 4.Only because the male anti-hero actors were good. Not being sexist. The females were just one dimensional.If "The Upper Footage" entertains you then great. I can't stand Ranch dressing, avocados or curry but don't criticize others who do.If you enjoy found footage films and never watched ".REC" have a look at both the Spanish original and the American version with Dexter's sister, Jennifer Carpenter. The American remake did justice to the original.If you watched this on Vimeo, the Joss Whedon film, "In Your Eyes" is a better choice for your first Vimeo rental. A nice romance, low key, great acting with characters you liked.Roger Ebert was the last of the educated and credentialed, objective professional critics. The rest have zero credibility whose one-liner reviews are from a copy/paste cheat sheet.
Blaise37
I think the marketing for this movie was GENIUS. They definitely fooled many media outlets with its convincing story. The movie itself is quite simple to be honest. Not that its a bad thing. So the story follows 4 friends (3 guys and 1 girl) who pick up a girl while they are out in their limo and bring her home. After a lot of partying and whatnot, they decide to do cocaine that they bought earlier that night.Unfortunately, the new girl takes too much and dies of an overdose in the bathroom. Everyone flips out and now we have our story! The death itself actually doesn't happen until about halfway through. The whole half basically just shows them in the limo and in the apartment where they party. Whether you like the characters or not, you get a sense of how they are by the time the death happens. Once the girl dies it becomes incredibly intense. They start arguing about what they should do and it's kind of scary! It's one of those movies that makes you ask yourself, "What would I do in this situation?" This movie isn't necessarily a horror movie, but it is scary because it's something very real and possible in the real world. How many times do you hear of people having an overdose in the news? This is basically a fictional first-hand account of one of those events. I think it serves as a lesson to our young generation of teens who need to be able to control themselves when it comes to peer pressure. Like I mentioned earlier, it's a very simple premise, but I think that is an advantage of this movie because if it got too complicated, it might not seem as real. I think that was the goal of the filmmakers, to portray something very real and convincing. That's how Blair Witch Project was back in 1999, which is a movie I hear was a great inspiration for this movie. The story for that was incredibly simple. A group of 3 friends go into the woods for a school project and then they get terrorized by ghosts. That movie, along with this, had an established "mythology" to back it up as context. Blair Witch had the "legend" and this movie had the publicity it got years back when a video was uploaded online showing the girl who overdosed. Although I don't know if this can be as successful as Blair Witch, it has potential if given the right opportunities. I wish the filmmakers the best of luck in the future because they think differently than most filmmakers who want to create a horror-esque movie, especially in the found-footage genre. While the movie itself is not ground-breaking with the found-footage genre, the back-story definitely is and I respect all they went through to make this happen. If you like horror movies or found-footage movies, I think you should totally give this a shot! It's great that in the beginning they provide you with a timeline of everything that happened.
