The Upper Footage (UPPER)

"The Upper Footage"

It wasn't just bad, it was annoying.

Had it been made prior to "The Blair Witch Project" and just a short film made by a group of friends with a good camera, it would be OK.

I want to state all kinds of negative one-liners but that's not being objective and will get ignored. s in the Found Footage genre were was, "The Blair Witch Project." Quite a few of my co-workers thought that Blair Witch was real. That was due in part to the multimedia campaign elements such as the website.

The Spanish film, ".REC" was great. It was engaging from beginning to end. Not that a real budget necessarily matters but it had about $1.8 million and the money was widely spent.

I found V/H/S to be better than this and that movie received poor reviews. It was crudely filmed but then so was The Blair Witch project but it wasn't dishonest.

I was misled by the list of positive reviews by Internet critics on the Vimeo site as well as the user reviews.

I'll stop short of accusing the film makers of using their own people as shills. For all of the dishonesty, lack of creativity and lack of entertainment value, I'm giving this a 4.

Only because the male anti-hero actors were good. Not being sexist. The females were just one dimensional.

If "The Upper Footage" entertains you then great. I can't stand Ranch dressing, avocados or curry but don't criticize others who do.

If you enjoy found footage films and never watched ".REC" have a look at both the Spanish original and the American version with Dexter's sister, Jennifer Carpenter. The American remake did justice to the original.

If you watched this on Vimeo, the Joss Whedon film, "In Your Eyes" is a better choice for your first Vimeo rental. A nice romance, low key, great acting with characters you liked.

Roger Ebert was the last of the educated and credentialed, objective professional critics. The rest have zero credibility whose one-liner reviews are from a copy/paste cheat sheet.

when i first heard about the movie, i was immediately hooked to the idea and followed it all the way to the recent release. i followed the ups and downs with all the news on the film and to finally see it, there's a great sigh of relief and accomplishment the whole time, i was at the edge of my seat. it was definitely worth the wait, and the amount of publicity this movie gained was just awesome. I'm not going to lie, it had me going the whole time with the plot that bordered the line of fact and fiction. UPPER was like a mixture of The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield. it was great! hopefully one day, i can watch this one the big screen to better enjoy this movie to its full potential.

The best thing you can say about this film is that, like the Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity, the creators managed to create a very real sense of 'this is real; this all actually happened' around it and those comparisons seem to have been made across many reviews I've read.

However, that is where any similarities end.

I've read time and again that the 'found footage' genre is stuck in a rut and that it's all been done to death and should be laid to rest for our own good. On the contrary, I'm one of those heathens that actually thinks that, when done well, it still has bags to offer and can be very effective and often terrifying.

The Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity were nothing new - they just perfected the use of the 'shaky cam' and discovered footage techniques to create very subtle scares and truly play on the 'what you can't see is always scarier than what you can' and Paranormal Activity was so effective at this that it actually had my then girlfriend - now wife - in tears on the couch watching this.

Watching 'The Upper Footage' could well also have you in tears but not for the right reasons, as it's an incredibly slow, boring movie. Classed as a 'horror' (depending where you look), the only thing horrible about the movie is how the main characters treat other human beings.

I found this aspect very realistic, having spent time at university with a number of 'privileged' individuals who didn't care in the slightest about how their actions affected other people.

This appears to be the driving point of the whole movie - how young, rich socialites will - and can - get away with murder, literally, as a direct result of their actions and how they will go to real lengths to cover this up. All in all, this could've made for a real interesting movie but little happens for the first 65-70 minutes. Even when we reach the point where the movie should pick up, it still feels very underwhelming.

Not even the girl that gets picked up near the beginning gets any sympathy from me, as she allows herself to be the entertainment for the rich kids, and as her face is pixelated the entire time she's on camera, it's even more difficult to relate to her in any way.

All-in-all, a pretty poor attempt at a different sort of 'found footage' movie, with little to recommend it.

Summary: The Upper Footage is extremely boring at times, but its impressive final act compensates for it flaws. 60/100 (C+)

If you are not a fan of the found-footage sub-genre, you will be disappointed with this flick. The Upper Footage is strictly for hardcore found-footage movie fans. It was quite boring and requires lots of patience. It relies on realism and it did a good job because everything looked very real, even though it was obviously fake. The dialog was repetitive at times, also the profanity was constant and annoying at a certain point. But the film boasts enough intense moments and drama to mildly succeed, most of it was in its third act. I watched the first half of the movie with my sister, she was bored, extremely bored. I was a bit disappointed with the first half of the film because nothing happens. However, the second half is impressive and the tension begins, although it is still somewhat slow.

The first half was a total bore, the second half was a little bit more entertaining but quite slow too. Another problem is that the characters were not interesting enough to keep us entertained. There was not enough entertainment here, 60% of the film is people saying the F word like a thousand times... literally. I was like "meh" during the first 40 minutes, and some other parts in the second half. The entire movie was filled with people arguing about things that I did not care. It was just dull, but then I was shocked. The last 20-30 minutes were very impressive, the final act was very similar to The Blair Witch Project. It was shocking to me because I am a huge fan of that movie and this film was very close to it, in terms of realism.

Surprisingly, most of the characters in the final act became kind of likable, especially that blonde girl and the dude that was recording, they were quite smart and believable, the other guys were good too. I also loved a line near the end of the movie from the blonde girl: "I can smell her". If you have seen the movie you know what I mean. The payoff was good enough to me. There was a scene involving a chilling scream near the very end, it was pretty neat, well-done and brilliantly directed. In conclusion, the last act was a decent payoff. While most of the film is a total bore, the final act was impressive, refreshing and looked very realistic. Director Justin Cole has a new fan, I am looking forward to his new projects. (C+)

First off let me say I'm a fan of the found horror footage genre. Having watched not only the popular ones such as Blair Witch, Grave Encounters, REC, etc. I also really enjoyed watching the less well known Haunted Poland, Severed Footage, Exhibit A, etc.

Often I find the ratings of found footage films rather low as they are not to everyone's taste. However, with UPPER I couldn't understand what all the hype is about. At best I give it a 4/10 as I am a fan of the genre.

This film distinguishes itself from other such movies by its astoundingly shaky and out of focus camera. For instance, in the last third of the film, when they are driving towards Greenwitch, there are about 5 min of unfocused black screen with only shouting in the background. I was about to brush this off as an irritating feature due to the lack of night vision of the camera - when suddenly it is revealed that the camera does have proper night vision.

As for the plot, there isn't much. Basically it's obvious that something will go wrong. There was quite some tension among the "friends" to begin with that I was't surprised (contrary to some) that there would be a whole lot of arguing when something does hit the fan.

To be fair found footage films aren't famous for their plots, however the tension in them towards the end is always palpable. UPPER on the other hand left me rather board all the way through. I honestly can't find any comparison with for instance the Blair Witch Project, which towards the end got me very freaked out. UPPER is in the drama genre and weak at best.

My advice, watch this if you are a fan of found footage films, otherwise skip. Definitely not worth a second look.