Followed

About a ghost hunting vlogger offered a $250,000 sponsorship in exchange for a 3-night broadcast from a notoriously haunted hotel. Based on an actual hotel and events that transpired there. Ok, the cover (I got) has a devil, and a bound and gagged woman on the cover, neither of which appear in the movie. Oh, all sorts of strange things happen in this hotel, the crew loses its marbles, and ZERO of it is explained. It even has an ending that makes absolutely no sense. Acting gets REAL sketchy when they are tasked with being emotional. These filmmakers directly steal scenes and audio cues from Paranormal Activity. I really liked the idea of the "elevator game," and I am a sucker for both the paranormal and found footage. All that said, 4 stars for me.

Antonie Le's feature film debut, 'Followed,' is definitely not the worst horror nor found footage film, although it's also very far from the best. It has a lot of great tension and some of the scenes are genuinely creepy. Unfortunately, the story and plot are a convoluted mess that never quite comes together enough by the end. It is trying to say something about internet celebrity and commerce, but it mostly falls back on clichés. The cast are pretty decent though the main character's obnoxious vlogger persona surpasses unlikeability and transcends loathing.

The movie does a great job of blasting the hell out of influencer culture and the toxicity that surrounds it. The lead character is impossible to like, which is the point, but really I just didn't care enough about anyone else. The entire thing could have been carried by the main character alone and you'd still end up with the same movie. It definitely has a good scare or three - his descent into a dark hotel basement is great - , but it's also unnecessarily convoluted, and the twist is pretty obvious. Even so, it's still a pretty well made, solid entry in its genre.

This isn't the worst found-footage horror you'll see, although it's also very far from the best. It's a jumble of half-baked ideas borrowed from other, better movies, overlong and not well acted, though more experienced actors still could not have pulled off this crappy material. But its shortcomings wouldn't seem so stark if you went in blind...as opposed to having your expectations raised for something even halfway decent by the majority of early "user comments" here that are all clearly by crew members, their friends and family. (I mean, click on their handles--"mysteriously," almost none of them have ever commented about another movie before.) Reading those kinds of 10-star claims and then watching something this lame and amateurish turns an ordinary bad movie into an intensely dislikable one, since you feel like you've been duped. Filmmakers: Show a little spine. Don't get all your pals to post obviously fake "reviews" on IMBD and other forums. It will backfire, in that the people you lure in as a result are not only going to hate your movie, they're going to hold it against you in your future efforts.

I watch a lot of found footage films so admittedly I like them. This is one of the better ones, but definitely is full of the standard messes riddled with the genre. The acting is good, the scares are there, and the plot is intriguing due to the real history of the hotel. If you like the genre you will enjoy it. My main problems were the plot holes and the overtly contrived plot, but that's to be expected.