Specter

Even since The Blair Witch Project same out (which I didn't find particularly interesting, much less scary), lots of other films have come along using the same formula. This is just another one of those.

The characters are pretty much interchangeable: a bunch of 20-somethings who do little more with their days and nights than get drunk and do drugs. None of them have any qualities that would make a viewer care about them, or at least not this viewer. The movie supposedly is building tension and suspense as it goes along, but to me it did neither. It's just one rehashed cliche event after another. I experience more suspense waiting for timer to go off on my microwave oven.

I actually really enjoyed this movie for what it was. It is a low-budget movie but it has great atmosphere. The story isn't exactly strong though. The acting is decent but nothing to write home about. The strength of this movie lies in it's imagery. The strange happenings throughout the movie are not explained at any point in the film but I think that ads to the draw of the film. You don't really know what is going on or what is happening to this group of friends. You are left with many questions about why things went the way they did and I think that enhances the mystery and creepiness of the movie. I judge horror movies mostly on if they effectively deliver what a horror movie is about. For me it's atmosphere and this movie has it in spades.

Caught the film trailer awhile back for this found footage horror, and it actually looked decent. Now it was on my radar. So when it came to watching it, the excitement nosedived, I had mostly seen the best moments already. "SPECTER" had an interesting set-up of sorts, builds nicely, performances are fine, but once the chaos begins. The staggered, clichéd execution shows it up, by not going anywhere with its slim concept, keeping us, just like the protagonists in the dark (literally) of what's going on. When it came to the abrupt ending (auto power off), I was at a lost.

What starts of like a small coastal town (on location Santa Cruz) threatened by a tsunami caused from an earthquake in the Pacific Ocean, leads too many unexplainable events and an entire town disappearing overnight. So what looks like being a natural phenomenon (storms, earthquakes, floods, fire), could be something supernatural at work. Yet these one-dimensional teens (one with his brand new camcorder) who are experiencing these weird occurrences have also taken an unknown substance, which kind blurs a line between what's real and what's not.

That's the hindering aspect, because by the end, it feels like a bad trip. Even the camera footage is experiencing the shakes, distortion, where it never really distinguishes the illusions, or threat. We see dark tall faceless figures standing side by side, and then disappearing; glowing eyes in the dark, loud, or strange noises from unseen forces, bright lights in the sky, unusual phone calls, technology interference, people acting strange and turning up dead. And when it came to those instances, the fuzzy camera footage reared its ugly head. It becomes a frenetic jumble of heedless ideas and random images amongst constant wandering. Like a total freak-out, getting stranger as it goes along, but providing only confusion, and a few spine-tingling moments at the backend.

Before the chaos erupts though, in the lead up you get a sense of the upcoming disasters (spliced stock footage) and some little things along the way that look odd. This does point more towards something out-of-this-world contributing, since this guy rarely puts down his camera, but you can't pass up the drug related angle. In how they presented the hallucinations, they could've executed it better to set these dilemmas apart. I noticed when the credits rolled at the end (outside of Jordan Graham being credited a lot) it had a website link for more info, ugh, and it doesn't work either

While the film is incredibly flawed and, aside from a bare bones story, incomprehensible to say the least, it overcomes this thanks to its cinematography. Though we never really understand what's going on, there is a mix of different themes to give a vague idea that the natural disasters plaguing mankind are the result of some otherworldly force, again though not one explained. It's rather hard to convey anything about this film other than it's found footage, is very muted in tone, and is very creepy. Many people will probably throw in the towel before the halfway point, but if you want something genuinely creepy this is one worth sticking through all the way to the end.

Three film students travel to Maryland to make a student film about a local urban legend... The Blair Witch. The three went into the woods on a two day hike to find the Blair Witch, and never came back. One year later, the students' film and video was found in the woods. The footage was compiled and made into a movie. Specter.

No. Kidding. Despite the remarkable similarities, this is NOT "The Blair Witch Project". Well, it's what Blair Witch would have been if it was set in Santa Cruz instead of Maryland. I don't want to go into the parallels so I don't have any spoilers, but, I mean, come on guys, couldn't you at least have written a new ending? It's a shame this film relies so heavily on clichés lifted straight from Blair Witch, because it actually shows some promise otherwise. Anyone who has never seen Blair Witch will very likely find this as suspenseful as the filmmaker likely intends, as well as creepy in all the right places. Plus it's paced pretty well. But substituting nauseating first-person camera-work—here supplemented by occasional visual "technical difficulties", noise, and distortion making it even harder to watch—and barely-unexplained visual creepiness for plot development, originality, and genuine depth was already played out long before this crew ever climbed Tree 9, climbed down into the Hell Hole, or burned rubber up Empire Grade.

They do bring a small sprinkling of new ideas to the formula—correcting Lost Boys' total breach of realism by depicting two or more people from Santa Cruz in one place together without drugs being ingested—and shows fleeting snatches of effective (if never adequately explained) visual frights, rather than BWP's audio-only presentation of the things that go bump in the dark woods.

And, really, in this case the first-person perspective (so familiar at this point that they don't even bother to have a character say "Will you turn that damn camera off??" or "Always film! We must film everything!!", because at this point the audience takes it as read) actually help remove some of the fear, because seeing everything through the camera lens confirms the reality of things for the viewer that the characters cannot be sure aren't hallucinations. The conceit confirms the objective existence of what is show, so the filmmakers can't play games with the audience's perceptions, show things from the perspective of a hallucinating character, etc.

But, you know, I'm reluctant to give this film a low rating, because until it ended with the solidly disappointing dual thuds of both an overly familiar cliché of a conclusion and the unsatisfying failure to provide any explanation for what has been seen, I actually did enjoy it, despite the overwhelming sense of familiarity that hung over the whole project. The characters, though not well developed, were sort of likable; I've hung out with this class of listless obliterati myself at times, and enjoyed it thoroughly. So it rang true on that level. Also, after taking a little while to get going, the pacing is actually pretty good, tension builds and is maintained well, although I would suggest to the filmmakers that some development, in terms of revealing what's actually happening rather than just throwing more and more random creepy things in front of the camera for no apparent reason, might have actually made it more tense and effective.

If this crew makes another horror feature, I'll watch it. But they need to get it right next time, keep the fun & scares but improve the storytelling and avoid filmmaking clichés, or I doubt I'd be interested to give them any more chances.