House on Eden

....don't do it. The movie has no good reason to exist. Thinking witty banter and charm would get these three through any half baked concept I went to the theater and was gravely disappointed in how pointless the movie could be. It's a ghost hunters/Blair Witch Project mash up with KallMeKris and Celina and Jason yucking it up in the woods. Jason's male gazing Kris with his cam and.....Kris finds a house in the middle of nowhere that appears to be lived in but no one is there so it MUST be haunted.

Nothing of interest happens in the movie. Ghost Hunters, a show I don't even like would be better than this. The movie comes across as having unscripted dialogue for the most part as there is a threadbare plot creeping along. It does come to a wordless, silent, suspense-free head at the end. While I like her comedic short form content, Collins displays no ability for feature narrative work with this movie.

While there may have been a point intended, it is lost on the audience for having to endure the meandering banter back and forth. At least the movie likely cost less than a million to make. I don't think it'll turn a large profit theatrically.

This does not meet the standard of a horror movie. It is not scary and doesn't even seem like it wants to scare, set a creepy tone, or even be an interesting paranormal investigation piece.

Pleasantly surprised. I knew the actors were content creators, but I'd only seen short clips here and there. I liked Kris in the Smosh Reddit episode, so I decided to check out the movie. The acting felt really natural, and I felt like I was along for the ride with 3 friends.

There were three solid jump scares that actually got me good but I do wish we got more background on the setting lore. My biggest issue was the overuse of handheld camera shots at the beginning. The constant motion started to give me a headache so I had to close my eyes.

Still, for a first-time writer and director, this was a fun and impressive debut. You can tell she has some interesting ideas.

I'm generally not a found-footage girlie, but viewed through the lens of a low-budget indie project, I think it's a pretty fun film. I enjoyed the references to demonology, even though it was pretty surface-level, and some of the less in-your-face scares put a big "oh that's creepy" grin on my face.

Now for my critiques. Kris's character feels the most fleshed out with clear desires and flaws, but the other characters, especially Celina, don't feel quite as realized.

For a House film, I would have liked more time in the house and less time messing around in the woods, especially since basically nothing happens during the first half of the film. I also would have liked a lot more lore and backstory on the house and its past. The convenience store scene especially could have been used at the beginning to add some foreshadowing.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed with the film as an indie project, and would be interested to see more.

Found footage movies generally tend to suck in my opinion. The formula is the same which is one step above reality tv. I'll admit the Blair Witch in 1999 was kind of spooky and had a decent premise to it. Here we have something that mashed every found footage horror movie you've ever seen. There's a cult in there somewhere connected to a strange spooky house and it's out in the secluded area of the universe. Sorta like a forest this one heavily borrowed from the 1999 movie and I even recognize a few other stolen situations from other horror movies. The movie starts out pretty decent. A blogger is blogging her experience in the haunted house of Eden. There are some spooky noises and a few jump scares until the second half where it becomes a letdown. The ending in these movies are setting you up for the big reveal these movies are known for. Here, it's almost like folks saw those boring A24 movies and put together a climax. Anyhow, this one is supposed to be headed for shudder soon which is better than dropping $12.

I think people are being overly critical of this movie. They had something like seven days to film and no budget. Shudder picked it up after it was made, so the creators didn't even have Shudder money when making it.

With those limitations, I saw a lot of promise. The concept turned out to be cool. Like others, I'd have liked to see that explored more and more depth to the horror elements, but I also respect the limits they had.

This is a first time writer/director for sure. But I would definitely watch another movie by them. I really enjoyed all three of the actors. I've loosely followed Kris for a while now, but all comedic things, so I was surprised when someone mentioned a horror found footage by content creators and Kris was a part of it. But good surprised.

This movie is worth a stream.