Scarred to Death (2024)

Film student Marina answers an ad for a videographer and as a safety precaution, brings some friends with her. She never considers one way to be safe is tell the guy you’re bringing your film crew and see if he tries to pressure her to come alone or cancels the meeting.

They meet Stan, whose seventeen year old son committed suicide in the woods. He wants to hire Marina to get proof that something supernatural killed his son or forced him to take his life. If they accept the job, he’ll give Marina $500 up front. If she gets something supernatural on film, he’ll pay her an additional $5000. 

Marina agrees and as they’re driving away her friends say they should fake a supernatural experience to get the $5000.  As a documentary film student, Marina says it goes against her ethics, but she’s willing to do it. Marina may as well kiss her documentary career goodbye.  Also what sort of animals take advantage of a grieving father, and film themselves discussing defrauding him? 

The group plans to camp overnight in the woods and have another friend play a spirit, complete with greasepaint and a sheet draped over her.  But things don’t go as planned.  You won’t care what happens to anyone.

After watching the movie, I’m not sure if the title was supposed to be Scared to Death and they misspelled scared as scarred. There is no scarring in the movie, and the only mention of a scar is one that disappeared. So… not a scar at all.

The description on IMDB says it is about “a beautiful documentary filmmaker.”  It seems really weird to include the attractiveness of the character in the description of the movie.  The beauty, or lack thereof, of a character in a found footage movie doesn’t matter.  Plus beauty is subjective.

The best description of the movie is one I saw on Reddit, which made me want to see it. They described the movie as a “community theater version of Blair Witch made by a group of people who had heard about it, but never seen it.”

Ridiculous dialogue

As a documentarian, faking something goes against my ethics, but a grand would go a long way in getting my thesis film in an actually decent place.

Maria: It will be ok.

Chloe: Ok? You keep saying everything will be ok. Do you now what that stands for? It’s from an old war. The generals would report a battle scene. They say this when there are zero kills. Ok. Doesn’t apply to this situation at all. 

I had a scar on my forehead for years.

You thought you could turn me into a drug addicted criminal and get away with it?