#No_Filter

The phrase in the subject line is something that I must say several times per day to my own teenage kid at home. I can't believe I now also have to start yelling it at a cinema screen as well!

I didn't like "#No_Filter", but to be entirely honest, that wasn't just the film's fault. It was a mistake of me to watch it, as I'm not part of the target audience. Being an old man (although admittedly more in mindset than in actual years of age), I passionately hate the newest digital trends and fail to understand the popularity of concepts like vlogging and influencers. Why anyone - especially teenagers who haven't accomplished anything in life yet - thinks his/her life is interesting enough to share every moment of it with the rest of the world goes totally beyond my limited comprehension. I will also never understand why people travel to the most breathtaking places in the world, like Bali, only to take selfies with the beautiful landscapes and cultural monuments blurred in the back!

Anyway, I'm ranting, but it's also exactly what you'll have to struggle through for most of the running time of "#No_Filter". Obnoxious teenagers with their mobile phones glued to their hands, numerous shots of kids messaging each other whilst they are in the same room, endless footage of Instagram-videos of so-called influencers who have literally nothing interesting to say, gibberish phone slang about social media filters that anyone over 40 won't understand, and - of course - lots and lots of drama-queening about who has the most followers, likes, and hearts in the comments.

And yet, believe it or not, but somewhere in between all this digital revolution rubbish - and sadly only after 45 minutes of running time - there's an adequate horror story hidden! Somehow, I didn't really capture how exactly, lead girl and top-of-her school influencer Anna turns into an evil version of herself. Obsessed with the idea of launching a scare-challenge via her social channels, Anna's eyes turn pitch-black, and she live-streams herself committing vile and sadist murders.

Once the film finally shifts into gear, "#No_Filter" has several of brutal and well-handled gore sequences, and writer/director Michael Dupret even generates some suspense, notable when Anna is faced with her evil self in every mirror image or selfie that she takes. The film also has good acting performances, and considering it is Belgian (like myself) I'm quite proud that this fairly innovative idea/concept started here (even though it's not my cup of tea).

Cool 90's horror teen Cool idea from Belgium. It reminds me a lot of the 90's teen movies i used to watch when I was a kid.

The first 40 minutes are a bit long but it worth the wait. The second part of the movie is quite fun.

It's like a monster in the house concept but with a twist.

I really like the atmosphere of the house. The casting is good. It's a low budget movie but it doesn't look like this, the photography is cool. I'm not into social media stuff but i liked what the movie said about it. The real monster is Instagram and all those plateforms. There's a cool quote about selfies, I won't spoil you:) Nice sweet surprise.

Any avid horror movie fan and critic would know this movie is way to slow. The idea of the movie is great but just wasn't excuted the way that it could've been, that being said, it does have some good moments in, but really lacks in creative writing, The movie is 1 hour and 30 minutes but really could've just used only 50 minutes of that, The acting is okay in it, It's definitely not going to go down as a classic horror movie, but it's definitely a good try and if your ever bored just trying to watch something it'll get the job done, Could use way more story plot and character personalities, Overall 3 out of 10.

No pun intended - I understand that some people have issues with the main character ... yes she is annoying .. she is supposed to be. Which does not make it better ... but she represents what social media addiction is able to make of us ... there is a decent human being underneath (no really there is - her parents are there to proof to us, that they did not raise her to be that way ... her friends too).

I have not seen the short movie the director did before this - I assume it has the same theme. Hopefully I will be able to watch it one day - I think I will like that too. Maybe because it is compact, I will like it even more. Anyway, the acting is really good and the effects work wonder. Set design goes hand in hand with cinematography and editing ... if nothing else I hope people appreciate the technical achievements here - for a low budget movie of course. Even though they probably did use filters while filming ... (see what I did there?)

Trying to build her brand, a burgeoning social media influencer comes across a viral challenge and sets about involving her friends in the series of pranks to initiate her new brand, but when she starts to find that da demonic influence has corrupted her life tries to stop it from spreading.

This was a decent enough if problematic genre outing. One of the better elements with this one is a rather fun setup involving the intriguing downfall of her life over social media. With the opening setting up the idea of this particular circle of friends quite nicely as well as getting the central idea of their influencer lifestyle, the brief bits here setting up the gradual reveal of something dark and dangerous happening to her. With the incident at her house where she gets fooled by the prank by the stalker that sets this firmly in motion towards genre territory. As that provides a slew of interesting attempts at suspense later on with the inability to determine if the series of freaky visuals, distorted videos and perceived conversations she overhears that signal the release of something demonic and otherworldly upon her and her friends. This is all decent and vicious enough to bring about some positive points here even if there are some big issues here that do bring this one down. The main overarching issue with this one is the massively topical expose on the plight of modern social media influencer culture that isn't in the slightest bit interesting. As the people here show themselves to be every stereotypical bit of phone-obsessed teenagers that are more concerned with getting more followers and attention for their posts, bring about an insane desire to film themselves doing everything imaginable regardless of the context of the situation, or showcase an irritating feature of engaging in the most vapid form of cool slang use as a means of engaging with each other, this runs throughout the film as a whole and never once allow anything to mean more to them than being glued to their phones. This is all immensely difficult to give much care towards and causes the group to be quite hard to get into. The other big drawback to this one is the lackluster pacing which really hampers this one quite a bit. Focusing quite a bit on the exploits of their social media platforms, their own personal relationships, and trying to make sure they're not going crazy that the film doesn't have as much interaction with the demon as you'd think there would be. It's mainly restricted to a small section in the final half where everything starts to go wrong and the idea of something demonic happening begins to build in earnest but it's way too late for that to happen since the film is nearly over by the time we get any kind of demonic activity, much less an explanation for what's happening. Despite the idea making some semblance of a plausible outcome, the idea is broached so late it's hard to matter as the dull pace prevents it from going full-on with the concept. These factors all conspire heavily to bring this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.