Die Präsenz

If I can stop just one person from watching this tedious German rehashing of Paranormal Activity with a twist of Blair Witch, then writing this run-on sentence of a review will not have been a waste.

It's awful.

And shouldn't have send the footage back to be honest. This is the most boring, non-scaring film I've seen since .... well another flick I found on Netflix.

It's supposed to be about two guys and a girl going to a medieval castle to investigate paranormal activity. At least the boys are, the girlfriend of one is dragged along for the ride. It's setup with some very brief background info/lore and then we're off. To watch black and sepia couloured videos of people sleeping, of hearing bangs and other noises, and seeing blurred images as "stuff happen".

Midway through the film the girl begs for them to leave, and I think that should have been the best really, as it would have cut this rubbish offering down to maybe half. They didn't, and she didn't get rid of her broken boyfriend and that in the end cost her dearly. And him of course.

Cheap effects, cheap production in general, pointless script - half decent non-screaming acting is bearable, which is kind of the kindest I could say about this mess.

While I saw a load of scathing reviews on my way into this, I made a point of not reading them. My expectations were suitably low, making a nice surprise possible (but let's be honest, unlikely).

I actually quite enjoyed it.

Sorry to those throwing rotten vegetables at this film, but for what it is, I felt it did the job reasonably well.

It's by no means perfect (or even 'really good') and I'm not going to ladle on the criticism because that'd be like shooting fish in a barrel, also, it's just mean.

What this film does possess, when compared to Blair Witch and the other found-footage franchises is the actual quantity of the paranormal activity (note the lower case letters). The supernatural entity in this is more active, vocal and just plain loud than those I've seen before. While this would make being there even more terrifying without a doubt, to the viewer I always feel that less is more.

With so much crashing and banging etc, with Becky scared out of her wits and the sleepwalking/nightmares that accompany it, that would be all the more reason to just jack it in and get the hell out of Dodge. "If you really loved me Markus, you'd save me from this hell..." (unfortunately not a direct quote from this)

The one piece of 'constructive criticism' I'd offer is that duringthe PA-esque nighttime infrared sleeping scenes, they build up tension reasonably well with noises and camera interference. Why then ruin it with sudden loud music and camera zoomery for a cheap jump? Less is more, young German padowan.

Food rotting from one moment to the next, while their back was turned was a nice little effect. Ditto with the ball disappearing then reappearing.

Rebecca really, really should have told Markus that she didn't like it and she was leaving. Now. With or without him. But no. She moans and is terrified but goes through with it, even though she claims to have felt that the entity wanted to do them harm. Sounds like my ex wife: passive/aggressive.

If you can't stand up when you need to and lay down the law, then I'm afraid that you're kinda asking for it.

Enough of my marriage councelling/pop psychiatry...

Insults/recriminations/threats etc inspired by my review of this please place below:

It is a boring carbon copy of so many movies with this plot and Horribly done. This German version seems it was just made for that' Germany 'with stealing every Part of the movie' Paranormal' and other video documentary style ghost movies and worse than that doing a poor job of it. Mostly a sit and squirm movie that will put you to sleep in your chair or more conveniently a couch when you do fall asleep. Very little of not happens and when it does it is petty crap. Not even worth a view on a slow night. Generic and anemic and just plan Boring !

I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of found footage movies, having listed about 145 of them. They tend to get low ratings here, for the most part, as this one has.

The problem is that some of them can be pretty boring, with one dimensional characters and bad acting and/or dialogue. Some people can't take the shaky cam or hard to see video.

This one however I found to be quite refreshing, if not entirely original. It concerns a trio of friends who go to investigate a haunted castle far out in the German boonies.

The setting is quite creepy, both indoor and outdoor. The action doesn't take too long to get going and things get interesting pretty quickly.

I found it pretty fun to watch and genuinely scary/creepy in just the right places. At 82 minutes, it doesn't slow down for long or overstay its welcome. All in all a fun watch. 7/10.