Incantation

Incantation had the potential to be great, and the earmarks of a great horror movie were present in the first five minutes: a creepy score, unsettling imagery, and the unique application of optical illusions, as well as legitimate audience participation. Sadly, the film wasn't quite able to capitalize.

Incantation's major downfalls can be found in its overuse of what can only be referred to as horror cliches. These include but are not limited to telegraphed jump scares, nonsensical character decisions for the sake of advancing the plot, and excessive "found footage" that heavily strains believability. When done well, a found footage film can be one of the most immersive horror experiences, but when characters consistently film themselves in ways that make no sense and actually become detrimental, the film tends to break the suspension of disbelief. Incantation is a particularly bad offender in this category, and frequently has protagonists waste valuable time reaching for the camera or aiming it to get a good shot rather than do literally anything more logical.

Upsides? The concept is fascinating, and the aforementioned mechanic of audience participation is implemented in a clever way. There are some genuinely haunting visuals that are absolutely not for the faint of heart, and the sound design and score of the film do a fine job of creating a creepy atmosphere when they aren't screaming at the audience to prepare for a jumpscare.

Overall, Incantation is a technically competent found footage film that fails to rise above mediocre in most aspects, but it's good enough for a single watch.

A movie that wanted all the credibility of found footage but didn't want to really put in the work. I know that found footage means you can sort of just wing it with the camera work and not really bother with the music but this would have worked better in a normal format.

It feels very deliberate how EVERYTHING gets filmed and the documentary approach (interviews with characters) doesn't help anything, the #horror scenes are cheesy and unfortunately they do include non-diegetic music.

There are positives though: although not a great example of horror that sears off the screen, there's a more than adequate story of a person trying to rebuilt their life under the ugly, watchful eye of those who would take someone's child away against the latter's will. They play it for a lot of pathos and go quite too for with it to be frank. It's not that I don't feel for these characters and their plight. It's that the whole thing feels like the author is exploiting their misery in lieu of better horroring.

The flashback element, where they are staying with that traditional family...I think maybe that should have been the whole movie. It creeped me out big time to see them painting that poor little girl.

There are other memorable moments that occur as the thing goes on and which I won't spoil. They admirably use a quite feather touch approach as we the audience just helplessly watch something that just might end up bad.

The final act carries a special sense of dread as we hang in the balance and it's fairly effective.

Those optical illusions add nothing.

It's done as a found footage horror film, but there's two tapes going on. The modern day, as the main character is trying to get her daughter back after loosing custody, and her past. She wants to tape her daughter coming home, and so it seems like good reason to tape things.

It's of much higher quality than a lot of found footage types, and does have some special effects going on. There's some really creepy effects going on, including some pretty horrifying Trypophobic scenes. But it does suffer some of the shaky cam downfalls of found footage, but not as bad as many out there.

I really liked the story going on, it really added to the horror, and does explain things pretty well. I also liked how it actively had the authorities involved because they worry about the welfare of the child. It seems pretty logical with everything else going on that this would actually happen. I thought it was a pretty scary/creepy watch.

Overall I feel like if they shaved about 20-30 minutes off the movie and kept the direction a bit more clear It could have been really great. Minorly confusing at times how a character got somewhere or how much time passed, it also jumped back and fourth from past and present, it was fine and we figured out pretty quickly what was years in the past, but that mixed with the hazy time passing between present scenes it was a bit confusing still.

Incantation's premise is a decent vehicle for a found footage film. The ride to get there is engaging thanks to the efforts of a strong cast, relatable elements that ground the story, and a dreadful atmosphere. Many spells are cast and give goosebumps throughout the film.