Project Eerie

I am a huge fan of Ricky Umberger's Fear Footage. I consider it among the top ten found footage horror films. The sequels were average, at best. I was happy to see he went in a new direction with his newest film Project Eerie, or so I thought. It is yet another anthology, this time without the mysterious disappearing house and with three kids breaking into an abandoned government building and finding a dvd instead of an old vcr with a tape. I can forgive that, especially with a first segment as strong as this one is. It doesn't last unfortunately. The second segment is just ok and the third...man. If you're going to have segment with paranormal investigators at an Amish family's home, it's probably a good idea not to have ceiling fans running and a light fixture in every room. That kind if oversight is huge. All in all, it's just an ok film - which is disappointing with such a strong start.

2023 has been lacking good horror movies with the exception of a few. I was looking for something new to watch and stumbled across this film, not really knowing what to expect. Now, I love me some found footage based films if they're done right, but those with excessive camera shaking to a point where it's hard to even watch a film is annoying to me.

I read the synopsis behind this which seemed intriguing so watching I went to see what this is. This lives up to its title and keeps your attention while never losing its creepy factor in my opinion. It gives you this disturbing sense of feeling in basic, yet effective form with each "project" you witness based on the plot.

The saying "less is more" is true and this film focuses on that, which makes it good in its own right. However, like any good found footage film, there's always something missing from it - in this case, a more explanatory ending. However, the way it ends appears to be left to the viewers to form their own narrative ending? I wanted more from it but unfortunately, that's not the case here. And as creepy as it sounds, I wanted to see more top secret projects being found while watching but all creepy good things must come to an end at some point.

I give this a 7.5/10.

Found footage within found footage. That's a new one, at least for me. This film wasn't what I wanted it to be. The synopsis implied a mystery of what happened to a couple of boys over the course of a night. Instead we got more of a 'V/H/S' style story where the boys were simply a wrap-a-round framing device.

It might've worked if the segments had been good but they just didn't have much going for them. They were heavy on the set-up and light on the pay off. I never found anything scary or creepy or edge-of-your-seat worthy.

Found footage should always leave you desperate to know how it is going to end. Here though, I simply couldn't have cared less. 4/10.

24hrs ago I saw Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor, in my review I wrote that if either Elsie or Molly wanted me to recommend them a found footage horror, I would recommend this.

The same here.

However, despite the interesting wraparound of portmanteau stories this is a by the numbers horrors with predictable shocks- something the aforementioned film had more of.

The videos and documents ( like the storage room in Carmichael) are conveniently placed for those to find out. Here it's an abandoned government building. Seriously? A government building? Weak scripting.

The shocks are routine and cheap- camera picks up a figure in the distance, pans either left or right, figure disappears. And despite the fact the audience is supposed to be witnessing raw and uncut footage, the filmmakers add sound effects and subtle musical cues. Cheap directing.

The first story of a father and daughter camping is rather well done with a creepy 'park ranger' loitering around but truly would a father looking for his missing daughter grab the camera. Surely, this documenting would be further from his mind? Again weak scripting.

Ignore the 10/10 review by TheFearFoorage, they made the film lol Fear Footage, Ricky's other films, were ok. They weren't Blair Witch, Death of a VLogger or He'll House LLC by any means but as far as low budget FF go, they were passable but this one sadly is the opposite. With a boring wraparound anf a handful of stories, none of which carried a sense of suspense or danger, this was pedestrian with a capital Yawn and stands as the first of his films I've really not enjoyed.

I've scored it a 5 as I didn't hate it, and 5 is an average rating in my eyes, and it's certainly not BAD, just very underwhelming.