#Screamers

Slow burning, didn't really get going, flash scares in line with title ... Kept me all the way to the end though, but ultimately left with a feeling of ... 'thats it?!' mmmmm

I watch a lot of these found footage movies and I can appreciate the slow burn style, but this movie takes it to an extreme. It feels like they got to the end of the movie and realized they forgot to put in anything scary, so they hit us with a series of the same, lazy jump scares. The first jump scare in the beginning of the movie totally got me, but my immediate concern was "is this all this movie is gonna have?" Sadly, it was.

Nothing is horrible about it, which may have actually made it interesting. Hard pass on this one.

This is a shockingly poor film. I spent the whole film hoping it would go somewhere but it really doesn't. Awful camcorder footage and awful acting, makes for a terrible film.

The movie has some positives: the final 20-25 minutes are actually good. In this part of the movie, they travel to Rochester and investigate the snuff film that they received. There are beautiful shots of Upstate NY scenery when they're on the road, and the moments where they enter the villain's home are suspenseful. I also liked the main characters, who legitimacy seemed like a group of chill friends.

The big problem is that the movie takes far too long to get going. As I said, the final 20-25 minutes are cool, but the movie is roughly 90 minutes. In the beginning, the movie wastes a ton of time talking about their company and introducing the characters. The filmmakers could've easily condensed this part. Accordingly, I also feel the ending came abruptly: they could've stretched out the final section a little more.

I'm very prone to watching, and actually liking, trashy found footage horror films. Check the archive of my reviews and you'll see this is true.

Even with that being the case, this movie is absolutely god-awful. It is possessed of exactly zero redeeming value. Admittedly, the acting isn't bad, but the actors are neither doing or saying anything that you would ever want to see or hear. It may as well be a found footage movie of people cleaning a bathroom but with less entertainment value.

A found footage film is typically a lot of glacially slow buildup to a climactic scene right at the end where you get your little doggy-treat payoff of some actual horror or something supernatural as your reward for having invested all that time in the lead up. Not in this movie. All but no buildup and then a nothing payoff at the end.

Take everybody's word for it in the reviews here. It's the biggest nothing of a movie ever made. Especially don't watch it trying to find out why everybody says it's so bad.