Nightshot

A young woman and her cameraman go into a decrepit building to do a live vlog and it all goes bad. Unlike a lot of these movies, I liked both characters. They weren't snarky with each other or condescending. This was filmed in one long shot, in one long take which is very unique. I didn't care for the ending. I thought it was kind of a cheat and rather unimaginative. Hence the lesser rating.

NIGHTSHOT begins its opening credits by telling us

"The video presented here has not undergone any post-production processing, it's the original footage/no cuts and no editing".

However, at almost the very end of the movie there appears to be a subtle CGI effect? Be that as it may, taking the claim at face value, this movie is a pretty impressive achievement.

In a single take in the form of found footage, it tells the story of a team of two urbex documentarians filming for a show called "Nightshot" who enter an old sanatorium which served as a prison in world war 2 and later was rumored to have a doctor who carried out certain kinds of deadly experiments. As the the two explore the building, they get caught up in increasingly unsettling and eventually horrifying events.

The setting lends itself very well for the kind of dark, doom-filled atmosphere that the movie aims for, and the black and white videography, only briefly switched to color during the movie to show a floor covered in blood, certainly enhances this.

Since we never actually see the cameraman (played by the director), the movie rests squarely on the shoulders of the main actress, and she does a good job of transforming from carefree if not slightly annoyed to a mortally terrified in the space of the take.

Although I was at no point bored watching this, it still felt like an overlong short movie. I think the reason is that story-wise, it is pretty thin. The film has a mild twist about midway, which, however, is very predictable. Beyond that, it really does not offer anything that enriches the story. The movie relies mainly on atmosphere, creepy moments and a few jump scares to entertain, and for the most part it actually succeeds.

However, once it gets to the ending, it unfortunately falls flat. I think there are two separate problems with how it ends:

First, I believe that for this type of movie to have a satisfying ending, it needs to a) wrap up loose elements from earlier in the movie and b) do so in an unexpected manner.

NIGHTSHOT fulfilled condition a) but not b). There were ample hints throughout that the movie was going to end this way, so it would have been more satisfying to subvert audience expectations and come up with a surprise.

Second, if a movie goes for a shock ending, it really needs to shock, and the ending, as staged, just does not have that effect.

In fact, the penultimate scene unintentionally reminds us that we are watching a movie because it inadvertently highlights the limitations of the one-take approach, and the very last scene seems positively silly.

It is really a pity, because NIGHTSHOT itself suggests one kind of shock ending which would have been better than the actual one: during their explorations, the team come upon a strongly disturbing photograph of a dismembered woman. Having the cameraman lose track of the protagonist and then discover, say, a "re-staging" of the photograph would have been far more shocking than how it actually ends.

Despite the shortcoming, for the decent execution of the unusual concept, it is worth a watch.

The good:

• Creepy atmosphere / setting. The black-and-white color helped leave a lot to the imagination.

• Good acting by the lead actress, especially for a film done in one take

• Realistic reactions by the characters ... After seeing some minor objects move without explanation, for example, the main character starts losing it, and she correctly demands that "we get out of here." In lesser quality horror films, characters usually act dumb and decide to "check things out" instead of leaving

The bad:

• The ending was kind of abrupt, and a lots of questions remain unanswered

• I'm not spoiling anything when I say that they get lost in the abandoned building. Well .. the reason they get lost actually had nothing to do with the ghosts or the supernatural. They got lost because they were too stupid to make a plan for retracing their steps. They should've put markers on their route, or they should've made notes to remember which way to go when they have to leave. Really ... they go in this huge building, wander all about, and expect to use their memory to get back out? Even if they hadn't run into ghosts, they would've still gotten lost just the same

• I got really annoyed by the lead actress's repetitive complaint about her stomach hurting. I was fine when she made that complaint 2 or 3 times, but she kept saying again and again to the point where I got impatient and fed up of it.

I had the chance to see it in preview, this film is great, the realization incredible. filmed in one take is crazy, the actress is great and the story too.

I was impressed with this latest entry into the "found footage" genre. The movie did some really nice tension building and it got creepier as we got closer and closer to the end. I do not want to give spoilers away but the ending ruined it for me. It seemed like the writer felt like he had to wrap up all the characters and came with a lazy way of doing so. When just leaving open ended would have been scarier