Dagr

I fell for the hype.

I rented Dagr on YouTube and I am very disappointed. This is such a bog standard found footage film it feels like I've already seen it!

How any filmmakers can produce something this generic is beyond me.

And well, if you're going to copy something copy something good at least. Maybe even try putting a new spin on it.

This is just lazy film making. I get it's ultra low budget but don't then try getting us to believe it's on a Blair Witch level of creativity. It's not. Far from it.

The acting is terrible. Yep I get the YouTubers are probably supposed to be annoying but the whole thing just feels like a joke.

There's no actual tension. Not even a decent jump scare to give us something to feel.

There's so many better movies about strange cults. Watch one of them instead.

Even though it's not amazing itself if you want to watch a modern take on British cults this year then try Lord of Misrule. Again it's not amazing but it's far better than this.

Based on some really positive reviews, I watched this movie with the hope of finding a nice little horror gem. I was sadly disappointed.

As is typical of most (mediocre) horror, the film spends about 30 minutes in the preamble, but does very little to establish the setting or characters beyond some pretty standard tropes. Given the overall short runtime, I was floored that they spent nearly half the movie's screen time on inane establishing dialogue and nothing-burger scenes. Not even really much to foreshadow or set a creepy tone--just minute after minute of yawn-inducing banter.

Even the "scary" bits were completely tired, run-of-the-mill fodder like eerie whispers and doors closing. Nothing you haven't seen in dozens of other horror films. And that's pretty much the entire movie: rehashed, regurgitated horror tropes with very little novelty or innovation.

Don't believe the hype. This movie is middling dreck at best, and not worth your money if you're at all picky about your horror films.

Saw the 4.7 and thought ok lets try it.

It was almost too painful to watch and I had to resort to the fast forward button. The action, if you can call it that doesn't start until 3/4 of the way into the film.

Whilst realising this is meant to be from the perspective of a youtubers camera I have to say I think my primary school age daughter could have done better.

In short its a painfully long drawn out build up to what amounts to a half cooked attempt at supernatural horror.

Make sure you bring lots of energy drink because you need it to prevent yourself from falling asleep.

Bring a pot of paint too and hit the walls with it. You might find the paint drying is more fun to watch.

When two internet pranksters arrive to disrupt a photo-shoot, something evil decides to call it a wrap.

Just about the lowest rating I've given a movie.

A few references to film school and the profession suggest the makers are well aware of their craft, and there does seem to be an enormous number of cameras in play, but nothing is done with care or intelligence. As for the writing, it takes 30 minutes to dole out information that could have been injected through high-tempo montage. But then a literally in-your-face tribute to Blair Witch - followed by the fatigue of realizing that nobody in this production understood anything about that found-footage classic and its unifying concept. Instead, it delivers frights at the same level as one of those daft ghost-hunter TV shows - but without the shadows.

When presented with a spectacularly bad argument, scientists have a cutting put down: "not even wrong". This is the film version of that argument.

An extra point for the one glimmer of charm, the actor playing Thea, whose surname I'd like to pronounce nice and proper.

Despite its short runtime, "Dagr" manages to bore the viewers within a short timespan. As a matter of fact, you have to sit through more than half the film before some attempts at horror tropes appear. This is just one of the more tangible evidences of Matthew Butler-Hart's struggles with the writing and direction of "Dagr". Whatever his point with this film was (I'm sure he had one) is not displayed even at the slightest. Some sort of social commentary? Who knows? When the folk horror themes is unraveled at the end, no answers are given anyways due to its convolution. And yes, we've seen the found-footage-within-a-found-footage horror movie trick before.