Followed (2018)

 

Social influencer and vlogger Mike posts video online about his adventures at macabre locations.  He convinces his team to go to a hotel where a woman recently disappeared.  Mike is completely fixated on this excursion because a potential sponsor will give him $250,000 if he can get 50,000 new subscribers.

The hotel tells him he can’t film there so he puts micro cameras in hats and clothing.  He checks in and then starts wandering around with a camera. He’s not the subtlest guy. At one point security catches Mike near the basement door, but surprise, the guy is a fan so he lets the trespassing slide.

Mike has a stereotypical online personality and relates only to the camera, not to the people with him.  Their interactions are for Mikes followers and there’s not much going on that is genuine.  

When Mike finds out the woman who disappeared played the elevator game, he decides he’ll play it. The game involves pushing elevator buttons in a specific order and then at the last floor you’ll find someone waiting. When Mike watches the footage of the missing woman shows, he notices she is pushing the buttons in reverse order. He theorizes she was trying to reverse whatever happened when she played the game.  Huge leap in logic, but okay. Maybe the footage is edited backwards or someone gave her the wrong sequence to play the game.

When Mike reaches the last floor and nothing happens, he heads back to the room. But soon he’s seeing things and hearing knocks and strange noises.  At one point a dead girl appears and stupid Mike thinks she’s a fan of the vlog who knew he’d be at the hotel and came to see him. Mike’s not so bright. He just played the game, weird stuff is happening, the last person to play the game disappeared, but sure its some random fan who acts nothing like a fan.

Mike is needy, insecure, and needs validation from faceless followers online.  He’ll manipulate his friends in order to get his money and more followers, not caring how it impacts people in his life.  He insists on filming even when people are breaking down or don’t want to be filmed.  

While with his crew, Mikes’ girlfriend tells him over Skype that she is pregnant.  Would anyone really do that? He’ll be home in two days. You’ve taken this private moment and told him and his friends at the same time. I can see if he was away for a month, but holy cow he’s only been gone a day. Why wouldn’t you wait to share an emotional experience in person?

This was okay for a found footage movie, but nothing innovative. I wish movies filmed from the characters point of view would be filmed without the camera seemingly being held by a chimp. I’m tired of these nausea inducing found footage movies.  There are ways to do it effectively without swinging the camera all around.

Ridiculous yet sadly real dialogue:

My followers are expecting me to go into the basement.

If I don’t have sponsorship, I’ll lose her.