I say that because they had a modest budget based on a couple of their stars, namely Jennifer Carpenter who is still struggling to remain relevant after Dexter finished up many years ago, and Greg Germann who isn't even in very much of the film but is definitely the most recognizable face in this film.
I only watched this movie because Netflix for some reason has started throwing horror movies at me lately but unfortunately all the ones they are suggesting are not any good. Of all the genres where it is very easy to be looking at a load of crap really quickly I think that the lower-budget horror films are the quickest way to end up with a bad films fast.
Now I will admit that I am probably going to be overly brutal about this film because of the fact that it falls into a category that is likely my least favorite type of film ever since the genre got "invented" in the 90's
It is referred to as the "found footage" horror and is based on the notion that someone was filming something somewhere for a completely different reason but then terrible things happened to the people who were filming it and later someone else compiled this film footage that was found, presumably years later. The Blair Witch Project pulled of this scam of a genre wonderfully in 1999 when they made a film that was barely watchable (or so I thought), gave people motion sickness due to the jerky camera movements, and basically had almost no budget. It ended up making over a quarter of a billion dollars because of the hype surrounding it.
I hated it. I can not stand the jerky camera angles and while I do admire the actors ability to be actors, pretending to not be actors but instead aspiring journalists, the crazy running camera angles that are at many times intentionally dark and shot poorly because they are meant to be simulating what you would do if you were recording something in a time of duress would do, it isn't filmed well.... but on purpose.
[src](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iYCwlnZ0HVI/maxresdefault.jpg)As the film carries on we see our documentarian, "Angela" (Jennifer Carpenter) slowly start to lose her composure as the fire call that she was part of (she was meant to be doing a puff piece on the operations of a fire department) turns into a horrible situation where she is locked inside of a building where the government is not allowing anyone out in order to contain a disease.
This is meant to be scary as they seek out more and more options to try to get out of the building they are in, to no avail of course - but while all of this is going on the cameraman just keeps rolling. I don't know what kind of cameramen you know, but i think that most people once the 3rd person that was accompanying you got killed right next to you, most people would probably abandon the camera in order to activate the most basic of primal needs: Survival.
The do their best by introducing scary babies and what not but for the most part this movie just becomes the same scenario over and over again as they really don't have any chance of being let out of this building that the govt has locked them in, this is evident in the first 30 minutes of the movie.
Is is scary? I mean, i guess so at times if you can tolerate the vomit-inducing constant camera jerk. Mostly this type of film has been done to death and even the ones that had massive budgets such as Cloverfield were annoying to people like me that need a bit more.
This "found footage technique" was an interesting plan on the part of the students who made Blair Witch because they had no money but when studios start doing the same thing for $12 million (the budget of this movie) I almost feel as though they are being a bit lazy.
However you want to look at it they made their money back, so I suppose they would consider it a success. For me anyway, I became annoyed with the film pretty early on and to be honest I skipped an awful lot of it.
Should I watch it?
If you hate shaky found-footage movies like Blair Witch, Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity, etc, then there is no chance you are going to like this film. I don't feel as though the story was particularly compelling either and mostly feel as though this movie can easily be walked away from.
If you feel differently I would love to hear why that is.
