Room 441

Decent start, dull and slooooow middle, decent ending. By slow middle I mean an hour of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happening. Nothing new here, nothing you haven't seen before, no real reason to subject yourself to this snooze fest.

If two lazy college students captured nothing happening on their iPhone then forgot to edit it and submitted it late in a desperate attempt to pass their film course, it probably would have been more entertaining than this movie. In one aspect this is a horror film because the sound of squeaky flip flops and the dull repetition of a dude saying "this feels so like, creepy" will haunt me forever.

I am what you could call a connoisseur of found footage horror movies. I am not exaggerating when I say I've seen hundreds. And this one was BY FAR the absolute WORST. It looks like it was shot on a Nokia from 2006 that's been strapped to a vibrator and tied to the end of a Skip-It. Literally NOTHING happens. I could sneeze and make a better found footage horror movie than this. There is one (1) special effect, and it comes at the very end, and it looks like something they bought off of the Adobe After Effects premade store. Hopefully they didn't pay too awful much for it. Just save yourself the trouble and don't bother watching this one.

Arriving at the haunted Congress Plaza Hotel, a pair of friends decide to go ghost -hunting to finally prove the existence of the afterlife but as they get closer to discovering something in their search the more they realize the stories of its haunted past were true all along.

This was a rather enjoyable found-footage effort. One of the more enjoyable aspects here is a rather enjoyable and impressive setup that provides this one with a fine creepy ambiance. The opening recitation of the webpage that gives a history of the areas' supernatural antics and tips serves to introduce the folklore of the situation nicely, much like the resulting scenes showing them not only going through the fabled room but checking out the grounds of the hotel. The ensuing scenes of them going through the banquet hall where the creepiness of the room makes for a fun time as their capturing of the darkened area full of cloth-covered furniture, dinner-party decorations, and general darkness combine into an unnerving sequence waiting for something to happen. That creepiness applies to the middle part of the film where they go around through the various floors and rooms of the hotel during their search. The layout and disorienting nature of the central floor plans with long hallways, numerous doorways into adjoining rooms and the constant whirring of mechanical and electrical equipment creating a genuinely eerie atmosphere that's almost as disorienting as their unfamiliarity with the building. Staring off into dim, dark hallways with all the creepy machinery nearby as they claim to have heard something strange from nearby during the search works nicely to give this section some unease and tense moments. Once back in their room and they begin playing with an ouija board, the wholesale creepiness, and unease that arises here leading into the rather enjoyable low-key finale where things get out of hand and bring some great ideas about the ghost action being quite enjoyable. These here are the film's good points. This one does have a few minor quibbles to it. The film's biggest factor is the constant shutting off the camera off to deal with scene cuts but doesn't put anything on-screen. Almost without fail, after every cut to stop recording they mention something that happened while it was off that would've been creepy to experience on-camera or announce they've turned it back on which is a wholly disappointing cheat. That is especially true with the minimalist approach here as this one features as the near entirety of this one consists of the two filmmakers wandering around commenting on things and highlights creepy locations in a way that looks entirely on the spot type of recording. This factor isn't a detriment as a whole but when it starts to get creepy only to have the camera shut off and not record it does become an issue, even if not completely all that impactful. As a whole, these here are what lower this one slightly.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Mild Violence.

The writing in this movie is so bad. The cameraman thinks it's funny or ironic that there's a Gideon Bible in the hotel room. Do some research. The Gideon Bible is in almost every motel/hotel room. Seriously, the writing is awful. I had to FFWD through it.

They should have trimmed the fat and rewritten scenes with better dialog due to a lack of creativity or imagination.

The camera doing somersaults didn't help either.

Dialog was poor Camerawork was poor

Why they are there in the hotel is only mentioned in passing but not developed, so nothing is reinforced or deepened.

They talk about things instead of showing them which shows a lack of budget and production value. If they can't put any time into making their movie entertaining, I can't see how I can recommend anyone waste their time watching it.

Also, once they hit the 12th floor, the sound of cars and people should be softer, not louder.

This movie is complete trash, I give it a 1/10