Dagr

Trying to carry out a new prank, a pair of women on a massively popular prank channel decide to crash a commercial shoot in the countryside that looks abandoned, but when they go through the recovered footage from the shoot discover there's a deadly evil summoned to kill them and is now after them.

This was a decent enough effort if only let down by a few major factors. What works nicely here is the manner in which the reveal of what's haunting the house comes to be, which is quite effective and chilling. The occult rituals that were said to take place here with the past occupants of the house finding themselves battling this supernatural force only for the new girls to come across the same thing when they arrive makes for a fun time here. The encounters in the house that take place in the second half, where they not only face the robed figure but also see the influence of its actions on the film crew they thought they were interacting with makes for fun time as the use of a creepy location and chilling action makes for a frenetic and thrilling time. The main problem here is the exhausting and draining build-up to get there as this one really takes its toll getting to this point. Focusing on some of the vapidest and irritating social media personalities who are no more righteous than the people they claim to be committing these against makes for a tough time really caring about what's going on. That comes off even worse when they're positioned as the moral center of what's going on as the antics are said to be so popular, but given that hardly anything interesting is happening either with them or the other film crew on location before they arrive leaves this with little explanation or purpose and drains this one overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.

I like this genre: found footage horror with a dose of self awareness. But, the lead in is WAAAAYYYYY too long and it definitely doesn't need to be given how little info you actually need to understand for the film premise to make sense. Seemed like they were trying to kill time in order to make it a full feature. There are so. Many. Driving. Shots. Also a lot of talking to random farm animals that they encounter. In general I feel like the two main actors (the thieving girls) are meant to be cute-bubbly sorts but they are also a bit annoying, think Kitty and Lydia from Pride and Prejudice 2005. I think this is mostly the case though because there is so much filler so they are talking and exclaiming a lot but it's very unfocussed/doesn't need to be in the film. That being said, still giving 5 stars because it does get some good creepy bits in and there are some interesting story points in the second half of the film. But you can pretty much read the synopsis and skip the first half of the film without missing a beat.

I fell for the hype.

I rented Dagr on YouTube and I am very disappointed. This is such a bog standard found footage film it feels like I've already seen it!

How any filmmakers can produce something this generic is beyond me.

And well, if you're going to copy something copy something good at least. Maybe even try putting a new spin on it.

This is just lazy film making. I get it's ultra low budget but don't then try getting us to believe it's on a Blair Witch level of creativity. It's not. Far from it.

The acting is terrible. Yep I get the YouTubers are probably supposed to be annoying but the whole thing just feels like a joke.

There's no actual tension. Not even a decent jump scare to give us something to feel.

There's so many better movies about strange cults. Watch one of them instead.

Even though it's not amazing itself if you want to watch a modern take on British cults this year then try Lord of Misrule. Again it's not amazing but it's far better than this.

When two internet pranksters arrive to disrupt a photo-shoot, something evil decides to call it a wrap.

Just about the lowest rating I've given a movie.

A few references to film school and the profession suggest the makers are well aware of their craft, and there does seem to be an enormous number of cameras in play, but nothing is done with care or intelligence. As for the writing, it takes 30 minutes to dole out information that could have been injected through high-tempo montage. But then a literally in-your-face tribute to Blair Witch - followed by the fatigue of realizing that nobody in this production understood anything about that found-footage classic and its unifying concept. Instead, it delivers frights at the same level as one of those daft ghost-hunter TV shows - but without the shadows.

When presented with a spectacularly bad argument, scientists have a cutting put down: "not even wrong". This is the film version of that argument.

An extra point for the one glimmer of charm, the actor playing Thea, whose surname I'd like to pronounce nice and proper.

Wow...this is one of the worst movies I've seen this year so far. They jabber on and make YouTube content for F O R T Y straight minutes. I'm not sure why I continued to watch past thirty minutes but I did.

I truly regret not turning it off then.

At 41 minutes the movies tries and fails to get interesting.

At 45 minutes in...we turned it off. It was THAT bad.

It's so bad that I felt obligated to write a review to save anyone else contemplating watching this.

Do not waste your time on this folks.

I repeat. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME ON THIS MOVIE.

And if you do, don't pretend you weren't warned.