Rorschach

All you need to know before watching Rorschach is it's about a mother who's hired a pair of paranormal investigators to either debunk or confirm her house being haunted. She and her young daughter have been experiencing strange events since the grandmother passed away.

This is a found footage film and a low budget one at that but the creativity and simplicity makes for a perfect mix of creepy, believable, effective horror.

Every detail is well thought out and executed that it's easy to get caught up in this D.I.Y haunted house story.

Hopefully other independent filmmakers will be inspired to break new ground with this genre instead of using the copy and paste formula which gives it a bad name.

Saw this linked in a discussion on "Bloody Disgusting" so I thought I'd give it a watch and I have to say it's a pretty good movie in its own right, which is something of a surprise considering it's on YouTube! I will say without hesitation that it's better made and more entertaining than many theatrical release horror movies I've seen.

It features two skeptics who interview people who report paranormal occurrences in their home. This time around they travel out to the suburbs to meet a woman who feels there's something strange going on in her home, especially with respect to her young daughter. The skeptics are there to just document what she feels is happening, but as they do so and begin to witness events they also can't explain, they get pulled into the situation.

It's a bit rough around the edges but as a found-footage film that actually enhances its appeal. Remember though -- it's a *found footage paranormal horror film* so in order to be effective, it HAS to be slow burn. Don't watch it if that's not your thing -- it's pretty far from being non-stop action. But yeah, definitely watch it. I saw it on YouTube and that's where you'll find it too I assume.

By the way this is not one of those logrolling reviews by someone who knows the movie makers! I don't know these guys and this is my objective opinion.

a no-budget haunted house mockumentary released directly to youtube, this is the cinematic equivalent of self-publishing

every horror fan knows the formula — a team of skeptic ghost hunters sets up shop in a supposedly haunted house in attempt to explain the strange phenomena afflicting a fearful family, only to be met with stranger and stranger occurrences as the story unfolds

it's nicely edited, not too shaky for the hand-held style, the dialogue feels more natural than scripted; the story is believable and manages to entertain without any jump scares, levitating beds or characters being thrown from one side of the house to another by unseen malevolent forces

it may not be the 'scariest film online', as the subtitle on the youtube upload suggests, but watching it alone in the dark at night, i did begin to feel a little apprehensive. this is an excellent effort for a budgetless feature film debut; i'll definitely be keeping an eye open for future projects by writer/director C.A. Smith

Found footage with a twist and what's the twist? That it's actually quite good.

Ever since The Blair Witch Project (1999) we've been awash with found footage movies. Primarily because they are cheap to make and this one as well was made on a budget of less than 10k.

Sadly they are almost always terrible, the low budget generally means that nothing happens and for the most part this is no different.

What Rorschach does differently is the tension, the creators knew what they were doing. They have created a well constucted genuinely creepy movie despite the lack of budget or the fact it's devoid of originality.

If you don't like the genre you won't like this, but if you have any faith left in found footage this little gem is worth your time and I'd happily watch a sequel.

The Good:

Very well made

Believable

Tension is built perfectly

The Bad:

No originality at all

Still just a cliched found footage film

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

This sub genre still has life in it

This movie started off with a nice pace. It wasn't too quick or too slow. It was interesting enough to captivate me. The pace around the middle part of the movie started to drag a little. It was never boring or I felt like I needed to switch it off, I just wished something more was happening. However, as the film starts to come to an end, it gets quite scary actually. Which is nice to see a horror have a slow build up and an actual scary final part. I was afraid walking around my house after this as the film feels very realistic. So I give it 7 stars for the great first and last act but the middle can sometimes feel a little slow.