As a fan of found-footage horror movies, I’ve wanted to watch this one for quite some time. My head is still spinning and I’m researching how to scrub my eyeballs as I type.
In this very shaky, under-lit gore-fest designed to appeal to young men, a group of this target audience who smashes, bashes, and harrasses while filming themselves to make money agrees to search an abandoned house in search of a VHS tape for a supposedly big payoff. Once they arrive, they split up after seeing that the home has various stashes of tapes: while some search here or there, one stays in a kind of media room to watch tapes to see if it’s the one they’re looking for. What follows are fifteen to twenty-minute mini stories which have all been taped over bits of other content on various VHS tapes. Each story features young folks, mostly men, behaving very badly (think misogyny to the nth degree, depravity, drugs, questionable sexual escapades, etc.) and paranormal happenings (with extreme blood/body parts and excessive nudity).
As the mini stories continue, we also are seeing things occur in the house around the group of guys. Of course, they are recording, and so it’s all caught on tape as well. When these occurrences begin to ramp up, so do the scares. Eventually, the mini stories, current timeline, and a past event connect via the VHS tapes, with a nicely done finale full of tension and fear. The question for viewers is: do you want to wade through the rest to get there?
Top Scare: On a video
Heartbeats: 3 1/2 out of 5
Gore Factor: 5 out of 5
Scare Factor: 3 3/4 out of 5
Recommended for: 17 or 18 and up, due to excessive gore, cussing, nudity, sex, and drugs
Tanya Konerman, Author 