Skew (2011)

Richard, his girlfriend Ava, buddy Simon and Simon’s new video camera set out on a road trip. Simon decides to film every mundane moment of their trip.  After all, how could he possibly know when something interesting could happen? So yeah, Simon is annoying.

While they start out enjoying the adventure, by the end of the first day, they’ve hit a coyote and are sick of Simons nonstop filming.  When they wake up in the middle of the night, they find police all over the motel because the manager has been killed. Being the annoying guy with the camera, Simon films the police and the body in the office.  

The next morning they consider turning around and going home. But their friend is getting married and they’re in the wedding party, so they press onwards.  But bad luck follows them as they either witness, or are in the area of, multiple deaths in less than a day. 

Simon tells Richard and Ava he’s filmed everyone who’s died and that each person had a smudge on their face. At first he though tit was something on the lens. But now he’s thinking the camera knows the people are going to die.  Richard and Ava don’t believe him and decide this is another thing annoying about Simon. 

Simon proves to be a terrible friend for two reasons. Even though the believes he camera may be responsible for the deaths, he keeps filming Richard and Ava. Also he’s in love with Ava, which is awkward since Richard is his best friend and Simon has a girlfriend.  She was supposed to be on the trip, but bailed because of something that happened, but we aren’t told what it was.

At one point, they are stopped by the police and brought in to the station.  The convenience store they just visited is gone and they were the last ones there.  This was such an irritating scene.  First, if the building is gone, how do the police know they were the last ones there? Second, we know they weren’t the last ones there because someone pulled up as they were leaving. And third, why the hell doesn’t Simon or one of the others mention they have video of them leaving the store? Simon films everything. They have proof it was standing when they drove away, yet they never mention it.

While the film can be slow moving at times - it’s like watching someone’s home movie - and the camera work can be nauseating, overall it’s interesting and I liked it.  It’s hard to figure out what is going on and when the movie was over, I debated what had really happened. It’s not really scary, but there’s a creepiness to it since you’re not sure if the camera is killing people or predicting their deaths.  And good god Simon, just stop filming people!