Daylight

Daylight seems to be, at first glance, a run-of-the-mill found footage film, rife with lots of running around (both at night AND during the day, because why not?), shaky hand-held camera work with gratuitous glitching from the editing room, several characters who insist on running said camera for every conceivable moment of their day (which they try and justify, but I mean, come on), and performances from actors which aren't terrible, per se, but which certainly won't win any Academy Awards.

But while accomplishing all of that, Daylight achieves something very, very different, and something that probably doesn't jive with a lot of self-proclaimed "horror buffs." The problem here is that I don't feel like Daylight, at its core, is really a horror film. There are no crap-your-pants scares, no ghastly exorcisms or CG ghouls flying around, and no over-the-top gore to appease those with bloodlust. Instead, Daylight is a slow-burn thriller spiced with the ingredients of a standard horror but couched in a formula that borders on art house, and the result is nothing short of intriguing.

The entire first half of the film, in fact, is nothing more than a crime investigation, which takes a couple of viewings just to sort out who's who and exactly why and how they all seem to know each other. But it's certainly not boring. Act 2 definitely tests one's patience and attention skills, as the chronological timeline goes haywire, and the story takes off in a different direction, which begins to amp up as the characters (and the narrative) start to get a little crazy. If nothing else, the film is worth sticking around for the last ten minutes, where the directors (there are 3 of them?) seem to have thrown the rules of filmmaking out the window and conceived of something that really cannot be explained, but is totally unexpected and amazingly insane and was a huge part of why I went back to watch the whole movie over again. And then again. And probably will again.

So would I suggest this movie to everybody I know? Probably not. At least not to anyone looking for cheap scares and mindless entertainment. There are plenty of other places to find that. But if you're looking for a dark, haunting, cerebral sort of experience, then you should definitely check this one out.

It's the only thing that this steaming pile of @#% is scarier than. No acting No direction. No plot. No point. No sense. No believability. No effort. No way to get your wasted time back. Just say NO.As in How about this movie should have never daylight? Daylight plot holes so big you can see.....Daylight through them...What should the people who made this film and willingly subjected it to others never see again???,,,You guessed it Daylight....Out of all the horrible found footage films ever made which is actually the most horrible...Daylight! Why did the chicken cross the road to escape from the crappy film DAYLIGHT..If you want to break up with your gf/bf really recommend Daylight and then watch it with them.They're assuredly going to lose all respect for you.Yay 10 lines.I officially wrote more meaningful dialogue than in the entire film Daylight.

DAYLIGHT starts off like many other found footage movies, with a person narrating after-the-fact on several deaths and disappearances that happened around a house; followed by the showing of footage found on location.

However, what starts off as a deceptively simple story about a high school girl for whom a team of three child protective services workers is investigating the possibility of child abuse sprawls out in multiple directions, so that by the time everything is said and done, the plot subsumes stories concerning each of the three members of the CPS team, involving three separate priests and three different girls, their families and one boy, all centered on demonic possession.

Apparently, the original cut was three hours long, and it does not surprise me at all. The released cut, about half as long, compresses all the different plotlines to such an extent that I dare anyone to make sense of the plot on first viewing.

The matter is not helped by the fact that in the second half the pace becomes noticeably more hectic and confusing due to intermixing of different footage and various distortion effects. It is done to such an extent that it makes me wonder whether the film-makers tried to confuse the audience on purpose.

Since this mitigated my enjoyment of the movie, I was getting ready to give the film a low rating, despite the decent production values and acting.

But then, during the last 15 minutes, the movie suddenly went into an unexpected high-paced quasi-surrealistic tour de force, which led me to revise my view positively.

The final 15-minute sequence does not really clear up matters and may even introduce new confusions, but when it is just taken in as a sort of rapid-fire "stream of consciousness" procession of events without worrying too much about what it all means, it actually becomes quite enjoyable. At any rate, it is not like the audience was not already told at the beginning what will happen to all these people.

So this is a found footage movie that I think can be quite polarizing. I ended up kind of liking it overall, but I can understand the view of those who hate it with a passion.

What a mess this movie was! I am almost at a loss for words. How do I even describe this movie?? Let's see....a super slow set up, about 10 different plot lines by the end including - paranormal elements, time travel, abused children, emotional trauma, murder, teleportation.. all culminating to a end that was nothing but people screaming, running around the various locations they teleport to, doors slamming, and camera interference, all of which lead to nothing. This movie tried so damn hard to do something different, but we were left with way too many plot developments, none of which get resolved. If this review sounds like a mess, it's simply because I am trying to describe the worst movie I have seen all year. Mind bending amounts of awfulness here. Oh, and the acting was horrible. At one point the camera guy actually whines "Oh man! Not again!!" after being teleported to a different location.

OK, where do I begin! I watch movies every day, every genre from blockbuster to micro budget. I will watch practically anything from start to finish, even if it is awful! This film, DAYLIGHT, left me staring at the screen saying WTF just happened! Very loose plot, too many characters to keep up with, awful camera work (found footage motion sickness job) and a story that just goes to hell. I have no idea what the point of this film was, and Im pretty sure the director took some acid half way through filming because there is no way anyone in there right mind would have taken a movie in the direction this one took! Maybe you have to have some serious chemicals ingested in order to understand this film! Wow, Im still actually shaking my head at what I've just seen!