He's Watching

There are some clear signs that a movie is going to be garbage if you pay attention to some subtle (and not so subtle) signs, and this one had them in spades. From the first 10 minutes, it's easy to realize that it was made of in "found-footage" style because they didn't have the budget to make a "real" movie. Not a deal breaker, but it gets worse. The movie switched from FF, to third person, to something like fourth-person (an "invisible" being recording everyone at the same time?) and I just didn't understand the underlying pathology behind this kind of filmmaking. If you wanted to make a movie and you could only afford an iPhone and your own family members as actors, why not just go full steam ahead? Why try to interject horrible segments of art-house, mixed in with misguided attempts at making some of the film appear like it isn't even FF? It's just a mess from the ground up, and I didn't get it, I didn't care for it, and after 40 minutes I just decided to stop wasting my time and turned it off. Honestly, I should have done it at the 20 minute mark but I wanted to see just how bad it was going to get. Glutton for punishment and all that.

I should have known this was going to be trash when I saw the political "Kick the GOP" bumper sticker on the youngest sons bedroom door. Then you see the feminist literature all over the house and it cements this very fact. I'm going to be paying even closer attention to these little details from now on, just so that I can identify these garbage productions and save some time and energy by not giving them any of mine.

The movie gets 3 stars because the two child actors weren't terrible. That's it.

Ignore this movie. It's not worth anyone's time or patience. It's the type of movie that will be forgotten and never be spoken of again, as it shouldn't be.

I'm rating this a 4 purely because it had some decently creepy stuff. I did not understand what was happening for most of the movie. It felt like someone was bored during the pandemic, gathered a bunch of people (who know maybe very basics in film) and then started filming and created a semi plot after the footage was filmed. Some of it made sense and then anytime I thought I figured it out, I was back to being confused. If it weren't for the fluff that filled the first half of the movie, it would have had a lot of potential to be a great movie. Just needed some help. It lacked direction and had some major plot holes.

A lot of hate for this title from the FF community. On one hand it's understandable because He's Watching is NOT really a Found Footage movie. But on the other hand, it's something much weirder and arguably even better.

The idea behind this movie is that it starts out as a pretty standard found footage flick, but sort of snowballs into (basically) a demon using found footage and electronic recording to communicate and disrupt the lives of two teenage children. If you've seen Benson and Moorehead's "The Endless," this is a very similar concept of a monster creating found media to communicate, just taking it into the natural next stage of presentation.

The only real issue that I had with this movie is the angle of the pandemic. As I understand it, this movie was shot during COVID-19 lockdowns, and in the film the two main children are home alone because of a mysterious virus that targets adults and has left their parents hospitalized. Chalk it up to pandemic fatigue, but I didn't need this movie to be stapled to a real-life event. It just came across as distracting.

But this is one of those FF movies that is more about the feeling of FF than the logical machinations to justify FF. As much as I like FF movies that have a compelling reason to keep the camera rolling, when filmmakers go in the COMPLETE opposite direction I think it's just as exciting. Give this one a shot!

While this movie is by no means BAD, simply low budget, it isn't meant to be a found footage movie. It just had to be one due to not having the money needed to do what needed to be done.

I'm a found footage fan so this didn't work for me but good effort. Good acting (for children), original ideas and a few genuine scares but it just tries to do and be too much. The found footage aspect just can't accomplish everything they wanted to do here.

The camera work is good, the house is creepy and lit well and there are no real "mistakes" to speak of. Just artsy, odd choices and a lack of means to pull everything off. Also the ending is going to be hard to understand for some.

It's really a 3 but I'll add an extra star for trying so hard.

The movie had its share of creepiness and started out interestingly enough, but then it strolled out into left field and made no sense. Hard to follow. Random scenes and images, then they attempt to explain in the end but still leave you very confused at the roll of the credits. Seems like it tries to be too artsy-fartsy at times. I just like a good horror story! This one tries to hard to be artistic, definitely like its coffeehouse horror. I want my $7 back!!