Polaroid (2019)

Teenaged girl Bird, who works in an antique store, is given a Polariod camera by her friend Tyler who found it at a garage sale.  Bird is excited and tells Tyler it’s the same type of camera used in the 70s by Ansel Adams and Walker Evans. I was hoping Tyler would tell her she was no Ansel Adams, but he just dumbly smiles.

Bird brings the camera to a party and takes a photo of her friends.  There appears to be a strange shadow in back of one of them.  When that person ends up dead, Bird notices the shadow is no longer behind them in the photo. In fact, it moves to other photos once everyone in the first photo is dead. That’s right, we have a haunted camera that kills anyone whose photo is taken.

Bird was already unpopular, and when she tells her friends of her theory about the camera, some of them blame her for putting them at risk. They don’t care that there’s no way she could have known this was an issue.

She starts trying to stop whatever supernatural force is killing everyone and tries to figure out whose camera this is and if they know what is going on. One scene involves her getting into a store by removing a vent on the outside wall. Can you actually get into stores this way? And if so, why wouldn’t this be  considered a security issue?

Another question is if Bird thinks taking a photo with the camera dooms the subject to death, why is she still carrying it around? Damn it woman, lock it in a box to make sure no one else uses it.

When their friends start dying, the police bring her in. They do not believe the story of the evil camera. And why would they? It’s ridiculous.  If only there were some way to prove it to them. Oh wait, there is. Because the photo acts like a voodoo doll and if you set it on fire, the persons clothes starts smoking before they burst into flames. A controlled environment with the ability to put out the fire would show them it’s not an act.