From the producers of SAW, VLOG is a groundbreaking extreme-horror film about a real-life webcam girl (Brooke Marks) whose online murder is not what it seems.
I have some issues with this film. First and foremost, I recently watched a movie called "iCrime" wherein a web star gets kidnapped. The feel was very different, but I think the overall inspiration was the same. And in both cases, I think the idea of a vlog is really stupid. (This film can be defended, somewhat, because it was made three years ago... why it took this long to get released is beyond me.)
I disliked Brooke Marks (the character, not the actress). Now, this is possibly the way I am supposed to feel. But she is everything that is wrong with a superficial, shallow culture. She uses people, sex is meaningless to her. She is vapid, and nothing more. When her friends start dying, I cannot feel much sympathy for her.
I take issue with the way the police are presented. Even if the police at first think it is a hoax or prank, once they begin to think otherwise, there should be a little better police work. Maybe an IP address can be untraceable, but I am fairly confident they could trace a phone call. And blood splatter, no matter how well you clean, is probably detectable with Luminol. I find it hard to believe that anyone can be completely vanished.
Those concerns aside, the selling point for the film (and what saves it fro man even lower score) is the gore. Great blood, guts, decapitation, explosion (and thanks for explaining how to make fertilizer bombs). The film takes such a drastic turn that it almost seems like a film within a film. But, hey, if it was not for these murder sequences the entire movie would not be worth a pile of festering dog spit.
As you can see from my summary, they are trying to play up the connection to "Saw". But there really is not a connection, at least no obvious one. Twisted Pictures was involved, but there is no actor, director or writer from the "Saw" franchise involved with this one, so if you need more "Saw" action, go rent "The Collector".
