The Break-In

I'm a huge fan of found footage, it jangles my nerves because it gives a feeling of realism, and there's no peripheral vision so you don't know what will be there when you turn around. I've seen quite a few, some good, some not so good. This one is at the bottom of the pile for me. I totally get character development, and I enjoy it, but almost this entire film consists of mundane conversations between the lead male with the droning, monotonous voice and his sickly sweet fiancé with her exaggerated facial expressions and annoying vocal fry. I'm sorry, but the film is almost over, nothing has really happened so far, and I really don't care what you'll be calling your baby, or what dance moves you used to be able to do. I'd say there's about 10 minutes of tension in this film altogether, if that. I'd give it no stars if I could. I will say that I didn't see that ending coming, which lasted all of five minutes and was quite a surprise. But that's all.

I actually kind of liked this film...for the most part. First of all, the premise was relatively unique, even in the saturated "home invasion" film space, and the ending was somewhat unexpected and clever.

The cast was also decent at portraying realistic characters with the exception of the main female character, Melissa. She was so over-the-top cutesy and bubbly, every time she spoke I cringed and it totally took me out of the film for that moment as I thought about how annoyed I'd be having to hang out with a grown woman who acts like a little girl 24/7. Maybe she's like that in person...but hopefully not. It's really off-putting and irritating seeing a women in her 30's (I'm assuming) constantly push this "aren't I adorable??" act.

Another miss was the inclusion of a scene that was supposed to be a dream, yet was apparently filmed on the lead character's phone because we see it as the audience. That piece caused a lot of confusion, as it wasn't clear whether it was actually a dream or if another physical activity occurred (trying not to include any spoilers here) and the dream was misunderstood by the lead himself, but it could've been more concisely explained. If it was in fact a dream, we shouldn't have seen it as the entire movie is "found footage" pulled from a cell phone.

All in all, I found it entertaining enough as a diehard found footage fan, but it had some major dings against it that could've easily been improved. Not a bad effort for what appears to be literally no budget at all, and I appreciated the bought that obviously went into the storyline, though.

I was excited to see this movie after reading the plot. Once I saw this was taped with a cell phone (i.e. low budget style) that was a turn off but decided to give it a chance anyway. After the first 5 minutes into all of the rambling on chitter chatter about Bob and who the heck else they were talking about..I became so bored and drawn away from the film I almost forgot I put on "a movie". It reminded me of when your at a house gathering or art galley opening with many people that you do not know and everyone is talking in this monotone voice, eventually what all begins to sound like...blahh blah blah...blah blah ..blah blah. Have no idea if this cell phone captured something more interesting but these characters, voices and script was becoming annoying. More effort in the writing would have been more appreciated to start or maybe more editing to get things going.

I've been browsing Amazon Prime to find some thrillers/horror movies to watch and came across this movie. It seemed to get some good reviews, so I thought I'd give it a try. I wish I'd found something else.

First, it is in the same vein as "Paranormal Activity" or "Blair Witch" in that it is shot in the first-person camera perspective. So, not very original there.

Second, the story takes a long time to get going. As in, 65 minutes. It isn't until the last twenty minutes of the movie that it *maybe* gets interesting. Other than that, it is the main character just babbling on and on while recording on his phone. Maybe the story seems original, but when you add in the way it was shot and lack of any meaningful story development it ends up being the same Hollywood recipe.

Third, they throw out a clue here and there about what the end game is (which I'm not going to mention), but I'm sure you can put it together. The "twist" (if you can call it that) seems more like an after thought or a really forced desire to be original--especially since it took so long to reach the climax.

The end result is an uninspired story line that is capitalizing off of the success of thrillers before it. It strikes me as a "get rich quick" scam. No wonder the run-time is one hour and eleven minutes; there isn't enough story to have even 90 minutes of film.

I guess if you're bored it's a way to kill time. Or maybe put it on the background at a party. You don't really have to watch the film to figure out what was going on.

I was really impressed by the originality of this film. I love watching Indie films, but oftentimes they aren't original and / or seem actually amateur (which, let's face it... if you're going to produce a film, shouldn't it be GOOD? Anyway..!). So this movie was GOOD. I was genuinely interested for the duration of the movie. And it's not long either, which was fine with me. It caught my interest. I liked the story. The acting was good. And it appealed to me throughout. I am giving it a thumbs-up because I ALMOST didn't watch this movie because of a couple negative reviews I saw, but then decided to (especially since it's only about an hour). I'm glad I didn't let their uncalled for negativity ruin my potential to watch a good movie! I'm excited to see more from Doescher. He really seems to have a creative mind and know what he's doing. Way to go, The Break-in!