Academy of Terror (2003)

Aka One of Them

Our movie opens with a woman on Hollywood Boulevard approached by a man wearing a wig and fake teeth. Are we not supposed to know they are fake? I don’t know. She jumps into a taxi, gets dropped off at a cemetery in the middle of nowhere where there may be a bongo player.  And she’s dead.

Meanwhile a group of twenty somethings and a teen are driving somewhere.  They spy a car in a rest area and wonder if they should check it out. Good god no! It’s night and the middle of nowhere. Move along, it could be a murderer.... in fact, it is.

Our group of intrepid youngsters sees something up ahead in the road. Is it fog? Nope, it’s a swarm of locusts. But instead of shutting the windows to keep out the bugs, the group prefers to flail ineffectively until their car crashes. Side note- it looks like someone is throwing buckets of bugs in the windows of the car.

In a soon to be intersecting plot point, we find out that the girl in the opening is Trina who was away at school. When her uncle can’t get in touch with her, he drives to the small town near the school.  There he finds the sheriff at the local diner, is promptly told that Trina is dead and then advised to try the eggs. Oddly enough, her uncle isn’t too overcome with grief to eat. 

Our group of youngsters wakes up after the car crash to find themselves convalescing at the school.  Yes, it would be more helpful to bring accident victims to the hospital, but the staff claims it’s too far away and they have a first aid kit. The few students staying there over school break seem helpful but a bit odd.

Most of the kids are overly concerned about offending their hosts to the point that normal questions about how they ended up there or saying they are going to leave are considered rude.  It’s bizarre behavior.  It’s not like they accepted an invitation and are trying to bail on it. They were carried here in the middle of the night while unconscious.  Later one makes the comment, “I’m not anxious to hike through deliverance country”, and no one bats an eye. Now that’s rude.

It’s not good but there is some amusement at the questionable motivation of the characters.  And for gods sake, if you need to tell someone their niece is dead, take them somewhere private. Don’t just continue eating breakfast in the diner - although he takes it remarkably well so he’s a weirdo as well.

Ridiculous dialogue:

Liz - We have to get out of here.

Jessica - The people I talked to last night were really nice. I’d hate to offend them.

He still won’t talk to me. Not since..... ahem the accident.

I don’t mean to be rude, but do you mind telling us how we got here?

At the risk of offending you, I have some questions about the academy.

You know, this is a pretty good little coffee shop. The eggs are great. Take care.  - The Sheriff after telling Mr. Robinson his niece is dead and giving him instructions on how to drive to the academy to pick up her things.

Get Away (2020)

A group of obnoxious film students go away for the weekend to shoot a horror movie.  Maddie gets a small part at the last minute and is mortified to find she’s sharing a car with her ex Noah and his new girlfriend.  His new girl is a piece of work. She’s one of those women who acts condescending and superior because she has your ex, while simultaneously being so insecure she’s afraid to let your ex talk to you and hangs all over him so that everyone knows he’s taken.

On the way to the cabins, they steal the head of a scarecrow because the director wants to use the burlap sack for her killers mask. The scarecrow is right next to the road which is an odd place for a scarecrow to be, but this does allow them to get a warning from a creepy stranger who owns the straw man.

The first night they are there people start disappearing and at one point someone walks out of the woods wearing the burlap sack as a joke. This is the type of thing that gets people killed. But everyone stands there in fear. Just once I’d like to see a movie where the guy who plays a stupid joke gets attacked by the people who think they’re about to be murdered.

Who is the killer? The creepy caretaker? The woman who’s scarecrow was beheaded? The film students who made fun of them in class? A stranger or someone who came on the trip?  They did an okay job of hiding who it was since it wasn’t until near the end where one persons actions were odd enough that I thought, this isn’t right.

The film students are unnecessarily sarcastic and the directors personality seems to be anger.  She can’t seem to talk without being aggressive and irritated.  There seems to be no reason for it other than to alienate the audience, but we don’t really need that to happen.

There is a professor who is murdered when she goes to check out the location of a shoot after getting a phone call.  She shows up at the abandoned building and keeps yelling for whoever called but no one answers. At one point someone throws a ball towards her so obviously they’re messing with her.  I’d love to have even her go, screw this and then turn around and leave. If someone is messing with you, just leave.

Also the ending was a bit odd. So we’ve got someone filming people being murdered.  How are they going to get away with it? They are on film doing the murdering. I dont know if the end of the film was to reveal that this person was definitely involved in all the murders, or if it was to reveal they won’t get away with it when people see the film because there is their stupid smiling face after shots of the dead teacher.

After Images (2014)

Film students make an offering to ancestors by burning a camera and the next day find a photo in the ashes. If a camera gets a photo, what will a video camera get? They make a paper video camera to burn and wake the next day to find film in the ashes.  Each night they burn different types of cameras and get different types of films.

As these are film students who need to submit a film for class, they decided they will splice together all the films they’ve found to make a feature film.  When one of the guys puts a teaser film up on YouTube, another becomes furious as he claims that is his intellectual property since he made the paper camera that they burned to get that film. 

The group starts fighting about who owns each film because they believe these films are better than anything they could make. They also theorize that when they release the film, they’ll become famous and rich, and can then use the money they get to make their own films. Oh silly kids, if you can’t make films this good, then how is that going to work?

The clip they post for the teaser is called something like sexy Asian in swimming pool. So that’s not going to gauge interest in their horror film.  The people using those search terms aren’t looking for horror clips.  And now they can be disappointed to find this page in their google search.

The students and their film studies are the wrap around for an anthology.  There are four stories:

1. Peeping Tom with a telescope goes to the pool at night hoping to run into the lady he’s been watching. A caretaker tells him the pool is closed because only ghosts swim at night. He ignores the warning.
2. A woman in a high rise takes photos of a person who jumped to her death and then experiences a  haunting
3. People get trapped in an elevator and some of them start freaking out
4. A man who works in a food stall is sad because his wife is missing and everyone keeps going to another stall asking for lady fingers

Dead Trigger (2017)

A group of young stereotypes is picked to join the elite zombie fighting squad known as Dead Triggers. They get into a conflict with another combat team in the rec room who tell them the name of their squad comes from the fact that they aren’t coming back from the mission.  Sadly this proves to be true for most of them since they don’t know how to follow orders and they constantly do stupid things that put them in harms way - such as walking up to a massive zombie while trying to kill it and never once shooting at it’s head. Dude, don’t walk towards zombies. It’s just dumb.

The group heads into a town that is overrun by zombies to try to  rescue scientists who’ve been working on a cure. As expected, the complex has been infiltrated by zombies and our scientists aren’t what they used to be.  But thankfully one is still alive and has access to the cure. Now if only they could be picked up to get them out of there.  Betrayal, conflict, and all roads lead to them being abandoned in town. 

Be prepared for the team to unload round after round into the zombies chests and scream about how it isn’t stopping them. Why do people in zombie movies not know to shoot zombies in the heads? And these kids are even video game players who play zombie games. It makes no sense. And for a zombie movie, they sure are cavalier about the zombies. Even after people keep getting bitten, they’re still not paying much attention to make sure they stay safe.

I’m surprised at how bad the zombies are at moving like zombies.  This movie has Dolph Lundgren so there is some money behind it, but they can’t find anyone who can actually walk like a zombie?  Also in most scenes the zombies are pretty sparse, usually appearing to number between 20-30.  That’s not a lot of zombies for an apocalypse.

The worst thing is that this is one boring zombie movie. But I guess that’s to be expected since it was based on a video game... oh wait, so was Resident Evil. Never mind. They have no excuse.

Ascent to Hell (2014)

 

Real estate agent Kate is asked to show the old Circle Clothing Factory which has been abandoned for years.  Kate arrives on time to meet a team of people working with a celebrity who plans to set up a celebrity fashion line called Quite Contrary Fashion by Mary.  Good god. 

Mary isn’t sure if she can see celebrities coming to this neighborhood, but the engineer and architect talk about how it has good light and good bones. But Mary’s bodyguard Roman says he has a bad feeling about it.

Everything is going well until they go up to the sixth floor which is the only floor that hasn’t been renovated.  There they find a weird old paintings on the wall.  They also find some old shirts and jackets which Mary tries on. Because old clothing that’s been stored in an abandoned warehouse for years would never be dusty or gross.

Too bad nobody realized there was a fire in the factory when it was active and 149 employees lost their lives because the owners locked the doors.  So now the group is stuck on the sixth floor with a non working elevator and a locked stairway. Can they escape? Will they kill each other before the ghost does? Do you care?...No, no you don’t.

Ridiculous dialogue

“I was just kidding around. You don’t have to be such a jerk about it.” - Mary to Roman, after he didn’t laugh when she made fun of him

The Follower ( 20170

David is a cigarette smoking, man-bun wearing, attention seeking, judgement hurling, ghost hunting vlogger.  He’s invited by Carol to investigate activity in her home, with the one stipulation being to stay out of her grandmothers room.  Of course David repeatedly tries to enter granny’s room and Carol gets mad.

Carol has a cute dog that, according to David, looks like he smelled something (no he doesn’t) and looks like he wants to eat him (no he doesn’t). This is just the beginning of David being an unlikeable idiot.

After meeting Carol and getting his cameras set up, David goes to his room and starts relating to his camera as if it’s a person, because you know, nothings more important than his fans.  He dives right in with the comment, “Carol seems completely insane.”  Granted Carol seemed strange, but perhaps that’s because there’s a ghost roaming the halls and her nerves are frazzled.  

As the film goes on, David calls her a nutcase, a schizo, and a lunatic.  He is the worst. He tells his fans, such as they are, he’s going to try to get into the grandmothers room again. Oh man, have some respect. He’s the worst paranormal investigator ever. Not only is he disrespectful, he deems the haunting a fake without ever investigating anything, and assumes Carol is behind any noises or items falling. Basically if it could be paranormal, David says crazy Carol set it up.

When her dog disappears, David goes out to look for it and finds it dead in the woods. Instead of telling her the bad news, he hides it under some leaves and lets her continue to worry about the fate of her pup. Can someone hit this guy in the head with a shovel or something?

Four weeks after he bales on the ghost hunt, he starts experiencing weird things as if he’s being haunted.  A friend recommends an expert who can help him. But when they interact, David accuses him of being a fake and getting info on him from their mutual friend. Uh yes, because that’s the best way to deal with any problem. Just tell the expert they’re a phony.

David thinks everyone is either a fake or pulling a joke on him. Sigh. We should have buried him under leaves with the dog.  Just when you think things can’t get worse, he decides there really is a haunting at Carols house. He says he must go back and help her, and it’s all his fault.  Oh my god dude, you knew her two days. Get over yourself.  He again proves to be a bad investigator because he’s tromping around in a very unstealthy manner while trying to get footage of a man that he thinks may have done something to Carol.

My biggest question is, was David written to be a jerk or was it how the actor chose to play it? Because I can’t believe David would have any fans or that anyone would be desperate enough to ask him to help them. 

Cringeworthy dialogue:

You’re a very lonely woman and I didn’t come here to find love. I came her to find ghosts. So let’s behave like adults and focus on the task at hand, ok? - David, making himself even more unlikeable by being condescending 

I knew there was something going on at that house - David four weeks after declaring that there was nothing going on at the house

Haunting in New England (2016)

 

Aka: American Poltegeist; Provoked

A group of paranormal investigators strike out again while at the Lizzie Borden house. But luckily while on the case, they get a phone call about a suburban family being tormented by evil spirits.  It seems odd that their case manager would call them in the middle of the night while they’re investigating, but maybe they have so few cases, the excitement level was high.

The next day the team heads over to the suburban home and sets up. Unfortunately for this family, the team is a walking soap opera. Lead investigator Paul wants to get back together with his ex, who keeps asking if she can be teamed with someone else. While team member Taylor is a total douche who plays practical jokes, digs through drawers during the investigation, and takes photos of peoples stuff.

After the team gets into a fight, team member Matt is so desperate for anything to happen, he yells at the ghost in an attempt to provoke it.  The others wonder what he’s doing as they pack up and leave the investigation because no one can get along. I’m sure the traumatized family appreciates the lack of professionalism.

At this point, we’ve spent time with this cast of characters and the movie seems to be about Paul.  But that is not the case as the film takes a huge left turn and we go home with Matt, a lesser known and less appealing character.  What the heck, movie? Don’t just introduce us to a bunch of people as if they matter, and then leave them all behind in the dust. 

Matt and his girlfriend Jamie have an uncomfortable relationship with a lot of passive aggressive behavior.  They argue about who left the water on and feel justified in doing things to get back at each other for the supposed transgression.  What makes this worse is that it wasn’t either one. It was the ghost. 

When his girlfriend starts having paranormal experiences in their home, Matt doesn’t believe her. He’s a ghost hunter who is begging to find something to investigate, yet he makes excuses to justify everything she says happened to her. Screw you, Matt.

When Matt finally does realize something paranormal is in the home, a terrified Jamie insist on leaving. But Matt’s all caught up in ghost lust and says she’s overreacting because opportunities like this only come along once in a lifetime.  A very confusing thing for a ghost hunter to say and if true, then no one should ever look for a ghost if they’ve seen one.

As with any ghost hunter who scoffs at the paranormal and then runs insanely into a dangerous haunting, things don’t go well for Matt, Paul, Jamie, or anyone else who gets in this ghosts path.  But we don’t really care if anything happens to them since this isn’t particularly enjoyable due to characters who aren’t very appealing.

Flight 666 (2018)

 

Flight 666 is the story of ghosts who don’t care if they traumatize a plane full of people to get back at the serial killer who murdered them.  Is there any reason they couldn’t have gotten this guy on the ground? If they can travel in a plane, they sure as hell have powers that could allow them to exact revenge at a time other than when he’s with a large group of innocent people.

There is a storm following the plane, which I guess is of the ghosts making. But then the ghosts themselves start popping up on the wing or in the bathroom.  We’ve got one guy doing a low rent version of William Shatner’s famous Twilight Zone, “There’s a man on the wing of the plane” episode.  There is no comparison.

Then we’ve got a stewardess with bad interpersonal skills, a woman who is hearing messages from the ghosts, a guy who didn’t bring his medication in his carry on eve though it seems to something that will keep him from panicking on an airplane, and an air Marshall who shoves a handful of random pills down the guys throat when he freaks the hell out.

So many ridiculous things and so little space in the plane.  It’s not good.

Ridiculous dialogue:

Listen up! I need everyone to keep their head on their shoulders! - Air Marshall

Air Marshall - Do you have anything to calm him down?

Stewardess - Yes but we’ve never given it to someone.

Pilot 1- Everything okay back there?

Plot 2 — Yeah, Alice was just checking in

What is ridiculous about this is that Pilot 2 didn’t have a headset on so Pilot one could hear both sides of the conversation.

Savageland (2015)

After an entire town is massacred, the lone survivor Francisco Salazar is arrested for the murders.  The police say he killed everyone even though he had his camera and took photos which show others committing the carnage.  

So why is Salazar accused without any real proof? Is it racism? The sheriff is white and Salazar is a Mexican immigrant.  Do they need someone to blame and he’s the only one alive? Is it pressure for a quick arrest? And why does the prosecution and sheriff ignore the roll of film Salazar shot?

The movie is done as if it’s a documentary.  The story is laid out by a narrator who takes us in chronological order to the different locations in town as he spells out what happened. There are maps of the town and a clear path of how the carnage occurred. 

There are interviews with people who knew Salazar and people who are angry at Salazar because they think he killed their family members.  There are photographers who comment on why someone would take photos of this carnage  - you want someone to know what happened.  Plus when you’re behind the camera, you feel indestructible, like nothing can touch you.  And we get to see Salazars photos in order of how they were shot which gives us a feel for things getting more and more out of hand.

This is a nicely done footage movie with an interesting story.  It was so well done that when I started watching it, I wasn’t sure if it was actually a documentary about something that really occurred. I had to google it to confirm if it was real or not.  That’s impressive because usually found footage movies are  obviously not real. It was the way they wove the interviews with the maps and photos. Plus the people seemed real rather than actors playing a role in a film.

The Canadoo (2016)

Five twenty somethings are chosen via email to compete for $50,000 in a reality tv show.  They are told to meet at a dock in a bayou area. Creepy hillbilllies pick them up in their boat and drop them off in the middle of the swamp.  

There is no one waiting to meet in them, not at the dock or where they’re dropped off, but they assume this is part of the show.  There is no food, supplies, or instructions. Just an old camcorder which they assume is to do their point of view shots.  Oddly enough, they ask no questions about how it’s going to be recharged, even though they made fun of one of the kids for bringing an iPod and not having a way to charge it.

It seems like these kids should be more suspicious. But then again, they were duped by an email. They haven’t met anyone or signed a contract.  The five characters are: small town girl who can only talk about her fiancé; weird loner who hopes to use the money to record a demo with his band; guy who lost his scholarship after blowing out his knee; shallow girl who wants to be famous; and arrogant buff guy who wants to be a model.

Thankfully one of them has some knowledge of how to make a fire and what’s safe to eat in nature.  The next morning, the weird loner is gone. Did he wander off? Did something sinister happen? Did he quit because he couldn’t take it?  And why isn’t anyone questioning their situation and how they are to claim that $50,000?

As you do when someone disappears and you’re in a creepy place, they split up to look for him.  People start dying, they find a cabin in the woods which has candles burning in it. They aren’t concerned about who might have been there and who might be coming back.  Then the hillbillies come a-calling.  Oh kids, stop looking for fame and money on reality shows.

Ridiculous dialogue

I used to do landscaping so I’ve had my shares of splinters.

Entity (2012)

Years ago, thirty four bodies were found in Russia and no one knows what happened. Russian Yuri takes a film crew and a psychic to the field where the bodies where found to investigate.  When they find the location, the psychic impresses everyone by asking what the building past the woods is. The building isn’t visible so they feel like they’ve done well in the psychic department.

It’s an abandoned prison which still has electricity, and is free from dust, dirt and cobwebs.  So is this place really abandoned or is it just poor filmmaking?  Our psychic quickly finds a spirit in one of the cells. She can hear the spirit talk, but it’s in Russian. So she asks questions and has the Russian interpret what she says for the spirit. On the surface it’s impressive, but the one flaw is that if the ghost answers only the non-Russian speaking psychic can hear her.  So she’s not going to get any information from that ghost.

Yuri seems to have knowledge of the prison, which makes one wonder why he’s asking them to invesigate. Then David disappears.  I have no idea who David is, uhhh absolutely no idea.  So either I’m not paying enough attention or he’s too boring to remember.

As usual, when people find spirits in abandoned prisons when there have been bodies found nearby, things go horribly wrong. It’s another middle of the road found footage movie. Nothing that interesting, but not the worst thing you’ll ever see either.

Here Comes Hell (2019)

Texan George goes to England to visit Victor who’s just bought an old mansion that used to be owned by an occultist.  Tennis player Freddie brings along his new girlfriend Elizabeth who is not up to the standards of this rich group of friends, especially Victors sister Christine who used to date Freddie.  

The group discuss snooty rich people things until after dinner when Victor announces he has a surprise. They are going to have a psychic hold a seance.  While not everyone is keen on the idea, eventually they start the entertainment which quickly turns into a nightmare.

At ten minutes into this film, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue. It’s based on the old dinner party and haunted house movies of the 1930s and 1940s.  However the contrast of the film makes it seem like a modern color film that’s had the color removed. I don’t now if that’s what they did or if it’s the lighting they chose, but I wasn’t feeling it. Although I did like that they appeared to use rear projection for the driving scenes.   

What made me start watching again was I saw someone refer to the film as Larry Blamire meets Evil Dead, both of which I love.  I didn’t find it as funny as Blamire’s films, but if you can get past the first ten to fifteen minutes of set up, it’s worth a watch.  The 1930s evil dead vibe is an interesting idea and they nailed the tone of the old movies. It’s an interesting combination.

Accident (2018)

After being dropped off at the bus station to catch a ride to a festival, Caroline informs Jess that they are actually catching a ride with a friend. Shortly after the bus leaves, they find out their ride has flaked on them.

Worst friend ever Caroline decides they can hitchhike to the festival.  When Jess is almost hit by a car while standing in the road in the middle of nowhere, the guys in the car offer them a ride.  Carline confirms her potential future serial killer victim status when she says the guys seem harmless and they should accept the ride.  Their lack of cranical functioning continues when they put their duffel bags in the trunk rather than keeping the in the back seat in case they need to make a quick exit.

When they stop at a convenience store for gas and snacks, the girls strip down to their underwear in the restroom. Who does that? I guess it was to dress more attractively for the men in the car, which is crazy since they don’t know anything about them. When Jess starts messing around with one of the guys things go badly. The ensuing chaos leads them to hit a car  on the side of the road and catapult into the air and down the embankment.

This is where thing go off the rails as far as anything making sense. I have no idea why the girls were unable to figure out how to get out of the car. One of the guys is outside. So either a window broke in the crash or he went through it.  Yet the girls are stuck in the car.  The second guy wakes up, pushes open his window and crawls out.  The girls are still stuck inside. They’re as skinny as he is. I thought maybe one girl was supposed to have an injury where she couldn’t walk, but she walks later in the film. So why can’t they get out of the car?

Next the guys argue about whether to help the girls out of the car. They want to get away since the car has a tracking device and someone is going to show up looking for it.  They spend so much time arguing about whether to help the girls that they could have helped them and gotten away.  Just stop arguing about it.

There is a small hole in the windshield. Jess keeps grabbing it with her hands and trying to break off pieces of glass by pulling them towards her. Oh my god woman, why? The window is bowed outwards, and you can generate much more force by kicking your legs into the window than trying to use your tiny hand to pull pieces of broken glass towards you.  And once you’ve pecked the hole a little bigger, don’t try forcing your head through it. It’s jagged glass. 

Also one of the guys has a branch piercing his chest. The stick is literally keeping blood from gushing out of his wound.  The worst thing anyone could do is pull the stick out. And yet his friend does. Gah!

The police in this town are pretty incompetent as well. A guy shows up at the crash site saying he’s from the FBI and he’ll take care of the wreck. The policeman calls dispatch and finds out the FBI say don’t know anything about this.... but he isn’t suspicious at all. Seriously man, you should immediately have your hand on your gun and be eagled eyed. 

I thought the characters  were supposed to be in college, but the description of the movie says teenagers. So these are really old looking teens in a movie that will frustrate you.

Dialogue of note:

I sincerely apologize. I really do, but the sound of your voice is killing us faster.

They Lie Inside Us (2020)

 

A bland dad moves into a supposedly haunted house with his disabled daughter.  While his blandness keeps him from being totally dislikable, he’s definitely not going for dad of the year since he’s brought his disabled daughter to a haunted house and she can’t get up or down stairs on her own.

Dad is a writer but he’s had writers block since something terrible happened. He doesn’t mention what it is, but his dead wife pops up every once in awhile. Is she real? Just a figment of his imagination? And does this have anything to do with his daughter being disabled?

Dad’s hoping living in a haunted house will provide inspiration.  He has a list of movie monsters and when an idea strikes him, he writes a story.  It’s essentially the same story over and over. A woman in a nightgown is chased by a serial killer, a scarecrow or a killer clown, etc.

His daughter spends most of her time alone waiting for her dad to be free to get her upstairs or out the door. But dad is lost in his own head and even on Halloween he leaves her sitting alone downstairs while he writes another one of his stories with varying monsters.  

After watching tons of really low budget movies, this didn’t seem that bad. But there wasn’t anything about it that really drew me in either.  It was an okay way to pass the time but the ending was disappointing.

Epidemic (2018)

 

It’s somebodies birthday today. Michael wants Dana to have a great birthday so he invites his friend whose girlfriend Mandy hates her, a neighbor, and Dana’s estranged father.  Her father is an alcoholic whose wife is a shrew and also hates Dana. 

When her father doesn’t show for the party, Dana is disappointed.  His wife is confused when she calls and he’s not there since he left for the party hours earlier.

The awkward party gets even more awkward once Mandy starts vomiting on people.  Earlier in the day poor unlikable Mandy found a plastic covered hole in the basement wall of their new apartment, ripped through the covering, and crawled in to find a hidden room. Her lack of stealth caused a clear bottle of liquid to break and make her feel ill. So now she’s released some sort of epidemic on our unsuspecting party guests.

When Dana’s father arrives, he finds Dana in hysterics and smacks her. Instead of calling 911 about the dead bodies, he carries Dana out of the apartment and off to a motel. Yeah it makes abolutely no sense, as does most of the movie or the idiot characters in it.  

There is nothing in the movie like the cover. There are no zombies, just people spitting foamy toothpaste and lolling around in the house. The characters make strange decisions. And why are Dana and Mandy dressed up like they’re going to a club when they are at a five person birthday party in someone’s home during the day?

The Entity (2015)

 

Aka La Entidad

A group of college students decide their class project will be about reaction videos. They document themselves watching the people reacting  because it’s one of those films where characters believe they need to film everything.

When Carla recognizes one of the guys in the video, they decide to interview him. But when they go to his home, they find out he’s dead and so are his friends. 

His brother believes the problem started when they went to the old cemetery. He feels like something is after him, even though he only saw part of the video the others watched.

At this point, the group comes up with the brilliant plan of heading to the cemetery to track down the video the dead kids watched, which turns out to be in an archive in the wall of crypts.  As expected in horror movies where people go places they damn well shouldn’t, things go horribly wrong.

This is a Peruvian found footage horror movie.  At times it was a little nausea inducing, but for the most part they did a good job keeping the camera from swinging around. One of the leads looked like a budget Shia LeBeouf which is too bad. 

Manos Returns (2016)

Manos Returns is the sequel to Manos: The Hands of Fate which was made in 1966 and became famous when Mystery Science Theater skewered it.  While the original Manos is delightfully bad and entertaining, the sequel is just bad.  It’s a labor of love done by the actress who played the little girl in the first movie, but it lacks the charm or inadvertent humor of the first one.  

The plot is essentially the same as the original movie. People in a convertible get lost while on vacation and stay at Valley Lodge. Torgo says the master won’t like it if they stay, but the vacationers insist that  it will be fine.  Do lost travelers ever actually ask to stay at someone’s house, and then when they are told the home owner won’t like, they disregard this information and stay anyway? The premise is so bizarre.

As in the first movie, the car is approached by a Sheriff. When they tell him they have reservations at a nearby luxury hotel, he tells them to go into town because there’s nothing like that out here.  They say they’ll keep looking since they already paid for their rooms.  Good god, ask some questions. At a minimum ask him if he’s ever heard of the hotel.  Because either you’re booked at a crappy motel who is using false advertising, or you’re about to be murdered

There’s also a subplot where one of the women just got out of an abusive relationship. She is concerned about how Torgo is treated and tries to alert him to the fact that he is being abused by the people he knows.

This is a very low budget movie. I think they raised money for it on Kickstarter. It’s not very entertaining and would probably only be of interest to those who know of the original Manos. 

Before Someone Gets Hurt (2018)

Tim and his paranormal investigators are hoping to land a gig on a major network and think this investigation is the one that will get them there.They’re heading to a house that has been empty since 1992. Empty of people, but full of furniture and personal belongings. This is explained by saying the last tenants left everything behind. We also learn there have been fourteen murders on the property and people have been crucified.  

They get a permit to film and head over to the home where crew member Billy set up the cameras in advance. The officials at city hall advised them not to go there because people die there. But apparently the crack cleaning staff is exempt since the house that’s been empty for twenty years is spotless. No dust, dirt, cobwebs, or sheets over the furniture. The appliances look modern and there is plenty of toilet paper. Even the bedding seems clean since our team decides to sleep there.

When they ask the location manager how she decided on this location, she says someone sent her a text.  When they look up the mans name, they discover he died in the early 1900s.  No one shall ask about their screening process or why no one had keys to the house they were investigating. Billy found an unlocked door and let himself in.

They send a text asking who the sender really is and the reply is “I am Novum.”  More research reveals this is a cult that’s been around since the 1600s. They believe by killing around 50,000 of the first born of men of the cloth, they can get Lucifer back into heaven. Because benevolent peaceful God just loves letting people into heaven who goes around killing tens of thousands of people.

As is usual in paranormal investigation movies, things go horribly wrong.  The twist ending won’t be surprising for anyone well versed in horror movies.

It was better than I expected, but realize that simply means it’s an okay film.  There’s nothing special or compelling about it. But at least it’s not one of those crappy found footage movies. The best thing about it is the house is kind of interesting. 

Ghosthunter (2016)

 

After Henry’s wife and daughter are murdered, he decides to go back to the scene of the crime. He’s concerned the ghosts of his family will be stuck there forever and wants to release them so they can be at peace.

Prior to the murders, Henry and his paranormal team set up equipment at the murder site, which is an abandoned mansion that a serial killer used as a kill site. They wanted to do experiments in contacting the dead.  They assume the equipment is still there since the police wouldn’t have known what is was.  Apparently the police aren’t very good at their jobs since the equipment includes computers. They certainly should have grabbed those to make sure there was no evidence of serial killer-y web searches or manifestos. 

The only skeptic in the group is someone’s girlfriend who is along for the ride.  When they show her a pair of goggles that look like something out of a steampunk convention, they tell her it’s an invention to see ghosts. She asks if she can use them. No one is concerned that she may damage their only pair of ghost glasses as she wanders off on her own without any instructions. Yes that’s right. They only have one pair of these fabulous ghost seeing spectacles.

When they start their experiments looking for apparitions, she continues using the glasses. Yes by all means, please allow the person who has no idea how to use them and doesn’t believe in ghosts to have the one means of actually seeing what you’re trying to contact.  Never give the amateur your ghost glasses!

The group captures some ectoplasm and the interactions with the ghosts become increasingly hostile.  For a bunch of ghost hunters, they don’t seem very well versed in their craft. They hear the voice of a friend up ahead when they just left him behind but don’t think it suspicious.  Pretty much every ghost hunting movie can be summed up by saying people go looking for ghosts and something goes horribly wrong.

This is an Asylum film so you know what you’re getting. It’s a step up from a lot of their stuff but its still not great. 

Ridiculous dialogue

Wait! Did anyone ever stop to think this could be dangerous?

Halloween Party (2019)

 

An interactive meme is popping up on people’s computers and asking them to enter their biggest fear.  As the clock counts down, it informs them that if they don’t enter answer or they lie, then their biggest fear will come for them.  Grace is freaked out and types in her fear, while Zoe doesn’t take it seriously - because let’s face it, why would you - and lies.  The next day she is killed by her greatest fear.

Grace contacts the polic but why would they ever believe she was killed by a meme? So she enlists resident nerd and computer expert Spencer to help her investigate.  The two actually have more in common than at first glance since pretty Grace was nerdy in high school.

They discover Zoe’s dorm used to be a hospital for deformed children and the doctors who ran it still live nearby.  Doctors? Hospitals? Deformed children? This doesn’t bode well for anyone.

The movie is well done but there’s nothing particularly scary about it. 

The Whispering Man (2019)

 

Mark and his brother Tommy go to clean out their grandmothers home. Actually they’re just going to take anything valuable and leave the rest for whoever buys the house to sort through. Is that normal in Hungary or are they jerks?

Mark’s focus in the house is finding the painting called The Whispering Man. The painting has been in the family for decades but his grandmother hid it in the attic because she thought it was cursed. Mark points out the nail in the wall where the painting used to hang, leaving me to wonder why anyone would hang a cursed painting on their wall.

After bringing the painting home, Mark begins having nightmares and strange things happen. He has dreams of an abandoned asylum, which he tells his girlfriend he doesn’t recognize. However he tells the camera he knows exactly where it is. Oh yes, because Mark has a YouTube channel called Chasing Fear in which he does videos about the paranormal.  So we’re going to see everything that happens because he’ll film it all.

The film was made in Hungary and the actors speak English. It might have been better for them to speak their first language since the acting is often stilted. However they’ll get a wider audience by using English since some people won’t watch subtitled movies.  It’s ok but there isn’t anything new here. There is nothing in the movie that resembles the weirdo on the cover.

At one point Mark’s brother Tommy walk in and says “Oh hi Mark” and all I could think of was Tommy Wiseau’s The Room.  Not sure if it was just an inside joke defending the film or a normal greeting.

Catskill Park (2018)

Tommy has an idea for a new reality show. The pitch is one man and one camera alone in the woods.  He takes his new camera and his girlfriend Monica to meet up with his friend Ex and his date Sam to go camping.  Not exactly what he’s trying to pitch but okay.

Tommy keeps his camera running at all times because he’s one of those guys.  His footage consists of Sam and Ex fighting, and all of them sitting around a campfire.  Fascinating.

In the middle of the night there is noise and they find Sam inexplicably hanging in the air. When a bright light zooms off, the two guys prove to be total tools as they run into the woods with the camera leaving both the girls behind. 

The guys meet up with a policeman and a motorist who they follow into the woods to search for the source of the light.  They want to be quiet but don’t seem to realize that means they need to shut up.  The lesson here is if you think you see a spaceship, don’t try to find it because aliens aren’t going to say hello. They’re going to murder you.

After finding the light, all hell breaks loose.  Tommy finds his way back to camp.  He tells his girlfriend he’s going to continue to film because it’s the only evidence something really happened. However the camera is pointed directly at Tommy the whole time.  So if there’s something going on in the woods, we won’t see it unless it specifically happens to Tommy.  

This movie has an arc of being annoying, then getting interesting when they find a cabin, then getting annoying again.  None of the characters are particularly endearing so you don’t care when things go wrong.

One of the things that makes them unlikable is they relate to each other so disingenuously.  When the movie started, I thought maybe Tommy had an affected speech pattern because he was at work.   Maybe he uses this superficial style of talking in the office.  But when it’s just him and his girlfriend, they’re both using the same type of voice.  It’s that fake type of talking people do when they’re relating to the camera and their potential audience rather then genuinely being themselves. I don’t care for it. Nope.

Quote of the day

Just because you get your own camera doesn’t make you a filmmaker.

Alpine Lake (2020)

A group of college friends rent a cabin for the weekend. Kat is a boxer, Monica is going to med school, Jim used to date Monica, Travis is a snob who is constantly putting everyone down, and Amanda is in an abusive relationship with Travis.  Why would anyone spend time with, let alone date, Travis? 

The group hangs out doing nothing and later that night a bloody girl ends up on their porch and soon after passes away. They assume the creepy caretaker killed her.  Their cell phones are missing, the cabin phone doesn’t work and their car won’t start.  Then the lights go out and people start making stupid decisions, such as going to look for the caretaker.  Dude, if you think a murderer is outside, lock yourself inside, arm yourself, and stick together. 

Travis is the biggest loser. He abuses his girlfriend, insults the others, and thinks the cabin is a dump (it’s gorgeous). When they want to go to the police about the dead girl, he refuses. He thinks the police won’t believe what happened and it will impact his future law degree.

Watching this is like watching someone’s home movies. It’s just a bunch of people in a cabin talking, and not about anything particularly interesting. If you were at this gathering, you would be thinking, what excuse can I come up with so I can leave. So it’s even worse because it’s a movie  where you’re looking at uninteresting people chatter.

Before I viewed this, I watched the trailer.  There isn’t one line of dialogue in it, which was really concerning a far as how bad the acting could be.  When I read reviews, they were all one star so I guess I knew what I was getting into. It’s a rough one to get through though.  The best thing about it is the cover.

There were so many questions about this actions in this movie, but the biggest one is why did the college professor have a full grown baby in a jar on her desk?  Seriously, she’s worried about hiding some red stuff in a jar, but she’s fine with a dead baby on her desk? What the heck.

Cringeworthy dialogue

Hey lady, me and my buddies are going to a cabin. Do you know where that would be?

You’re a good screw....count yourself lucky that I even talk to you. - Travis to his girlfriend

She keeps a full grown baby in a jar on her desk, but
doesn’t want anyone to see what’s in the little jar

Halloween Night (2009)

College janitor Creepy Harold makes a scarecrow in his yard and is then jumped by middle aged bullies.  The bullies call him a loser, which is ironic since middle aged men beating someone up for being weird is the epitome of being a loser.  

The bullies decide to throw a Halloween costume party and invite sorority girls.  One guys says they can have the party at his house because his parents aren’t home. These guys are way too old to be partying with college students or living with their parents.  In fact based on the birth year on the license one of the bullies dropped when he beat up Harold,  the guy is 52 years old. Jesus! Stop beating people up, stop hanging out with college girls, and move out of your parents homes!

The description for the movie said a mistreated student gets revenge at a college party. But the person mistreated is Harold, who is  invited to the party by one of the college girls. What is it with people inviting someone to another persons party? 

Harold rebuilds his scarecrow, brings it to life and invites his straw friend to accompany him to the party.  The college girls exclaim that the party is in full swing when they see the house... .the house that looks like your grandmother decorated it for Halloween. The house where there is no sign that there is a party inside.  The house that is so quiet your could sit on the front porch and read.

There isn’t one likable male character in this film. You’ve got Harold, who’s a damaged individual and then you’ve got the bullies who peaked in high school, if they ever peaked at all. If they were college age, you’d think they were just emotionally immature and maybe they’ll grow up once they get into the real world.  But these guys are way too old to be doing this crap. And while Harold is creepy, so are the bullies, especially when interacting with women. And what is wrong with Trixie that she dated the 52 year old? Yikes!

This is a Polonia Brothers film. If you’ve seen one of their films, you know what you’re getting. If you haven’t seen one of their films, expect something that looks like it was shot by your Uncle, with an equivalent level of acting.  It’s a super low budget movie with amateur effects and is difficult to watch.  You have to give them credit because they are prolific independent movie makers. That pretty much sums up the Polonia films - A for effort and D for execution. Yet I’m kind of fascinated by the movies, even though they are horrible

The guy whose parents will kill him if they find
out he had a party while they were away.

Rise of the Scarecrow (2017)

Officer Brown is the new deputy in town. He used to work in the big city.  We know this because it comes up in almost every scene.  It’s not clear why the sheriff needed a deputy.  The police station is so small that Brown has a desk in the sheriffs office. And while there seems to be an abnormally high death rate in town, the sheriff writes them all off as accidents. 

In a soon to be intersecting story line, three friends go on a road trip to cheer up one whose wife has left him. Loser Carlos says they’re going to have a good time, while simultaneously insulting his friends car, wife and anything else that gets in his eyesight.  Carlos is so endearing that when they stop by a farm stand, he makes fun of the farmers stutter, destroys his stand, steals product, and then goes back to pelt the guy with the produce he stole from him. Good times.

When their car breaks down in the small town, the sheriff advises them to camp in the woods since there are no mechanics open on Sundays. So the three friends tromp into the middle of the woods with nothing but the clothes on their backs.  As they’re thinking this spot on the ground looks good, a stranger pops out from behind a tree and tells them to leave because there are killer scarecrows that stalk the land. Granted it’s not something you’d believe, but one of the guys has already seen a scarecrow and that’s pretty weird.

Legend has it eight years ago some construction workers disappeared  The rumor is the sheriff murdered them and buried them in the woods. Now they rise as scarecrows and walk the land killing tourists. I have no idea why they would want to do that, but okay. Also no one shall ask why construction workers would come back as scarecrows.

Can Brown figure out what’s really going on? Will the remaining two guys ever get their car fixed so they can leave town? And is it wrong that I wholeheartedly hope Carlos gets murdered by a scarecrow or his friends punch him in the throat and leave him by the side of the road? 

This is very low budget filmmaking. It’s like your friends got a camera, made a movie and your friends can’t act.  It appears the on camera mic was used since when characters are far away, you can’t hear them talking.  In multiple scenes in the police department, scripts are seen on the desks.  And continuity is thrown out the window when Brown resigns and leaves his badge on the Sheriffs desk.  Then in the next scene, his badge is back on his shirt.

And if you like movies that hate women, multiple characters abuse their girlfriends and the song over the credits is incredibly misogynistic. Yeah, we get it. She did you wrong and broke your heart.  But there’s a difference between heartbreak and misogyny. You can write a scathing song about your ex without being sexist.

So many questions. Why do the construction workers come back as scarecrows?  Why did the sheriff hire Brown when the only crime that seems to occur in town is the one the sheriff is involved in? How does the Sheriff control the scarecrows? When the guys were told it would take a week to get someone to look at their car, why didn’t they call a friend to come pick them up? How is the domestic abusers wife still alive when he goes into the woods? It looked like he murdered her in an earlier scene. Why are the scarecrows overweight? Were the two people dancing in the background at the camp ground supposed to be in the film or did the director not notice they were there while filming? And most importantly, why would anyone ever be friends with Carlos?

Ridiculous dialogue:

I think I just saw a scarecrow but it walked away. It’s a dude dressed as a scarecrow. Why would someone dress that way? 

There’s a force here and it’s killing anyone who’s stupid enough to be here after dark.

The construction workers came back as scarecrows.

There are bitches everywhere. It’s Massachusetts.

Sorry about that. You know women, Can’t kill em, haha.

If your friend is dead, he’ll be dead when I’m finished reading my paper too.

Office Brown: Right now we have the element of surprise. The sheriff is not expecting us.

Sheriff (when they arrive) “Officer Brown, I’ve been expecting you.”

Afflicted (2013)

 

Derek and Cliff head out on a one year trip around the world. Derek has a potentially life threatening illness so his family is concerned he won’t be able to get medical attention if he should need it.  But he’s tired of playing it safe and wants to enjoy his life, especially since it may not be that long.

The two friends post about their exploits so everyone at home can keep up with their travels.  When they get to Paris, they go to a gig to see their friends play and Derek meets a girl he brings back to their hotel.  

The band and Cliff confirm their tool status when they decide to burst into the room to interrupt Derek with the girl. But instead of finding him in the middle of a dalliance, they find him alone, unconscious and bleeding.  

Once he wakes, Derek refuses to get medical treatment due to his condition. He fears if something is wrong, the hospital won’t let him leave to continue the trip around the world. However from this point on, the trip does not go well. Derek feels ill, and can’t eat or drink anything without vomiting. He starts experiencing other physical affects and they are convinced the woman in Paris is the key to solving his problems.

I was hesitant to watch this since found footage movies tend to be the genre used by idiots who decide owning a camera means they can make a movie. This was a decent film that kept my attention, even though at times I was annoyed at the characters for being stupid. 

Killer Camera Monsters (2020)

 

After Adam’s girlfriend breaks up with him and takes the equipment and clients from their business, Adam looks for a camera so he can try to get some work.  He gets a bargain from a guy in a parking lot selling stuff out of his trunk.  The guy says the one rule for using this camera is always shoot with natural light. Never use artificial light because bad things will happen.

Adam doesn’t take him seriously and his first shoot is his new assistant using studio lighting. Later that night when Adam loads the photos onto his computer, the woman turns into a monster, kills her boyfriend, his roommate and dies as a result of the fight. The woman’s roommate hires a creepy detective to look into who did it after the worst police department in the world give up on the case one day into the investigation. 

Adam does another studio shoot and thinks its a coincidence that two people he’s shot have died. But he realizes it’s something more when during a photo shoot at someone’s home, the man turns into a monster and tries to kill him.  

When he figures out what is going on, he’s upset. But then he realizes this could be a good way to get back at his girlfriend and is excited to own the cursed camera.  

While it’s not great, it did keep my attention enough to watch the whole thing. The monsters are basically the same person with white makeup on their face and that’s that.  They’re not very scary. If you opened the door and your friend was standing there looking like that, you’d simply invite them in. You’d never think, oh my god my friend has turned into a monster!

Ridiculous dialogue

If you need someone to look into it further, I would suggest hiring a private detective. - police in response to roommate asking what they’ll do to solve the murder

My friend was killed and the police say they can’t do anything about it.

Bride of the Scarecrow (2018)

Apparently Wales has a killer scarecrow problem. First Curse of the Scarecrow, and now this? Whatever you do, do not steal in Wales because an angry mob will leave you strung up like a scarecrow and murder you.

Once again we have a story where a man was murdered by a mob for stealing. The twist is his bride was also murdered.  The man now walks the land every twenty years looking like a raggedy scarecrow and searching for his bride to be.  The scarecrow has 48 hours to find his bride and murders anyone else he meets.

Radio host May has ratings so poor her show’s being moved to the 2am time slot.  Shortly after hearing this, she gets news that she's inherited a farm. May is adopted and never knew her real father. She knows nothing about the family, which is unfortunate because the farm has a curse on it. A scarecrow curse.

May immediately quits her job because they don’t respect her talent (such as it is) and she wants to stick it to the man. She’s dreaming of the money she can make by selling the farm and also thinking maybe it would be nice to live there.  She seems to have overlooked that farms cost money to maintain and she no longer has any income. Even if she did sell the farm, it could take awhile especially with the killer scarecrow issue. 

May heads to the farm with her boyfriend and two friends.  When they arrive, May’s told that her grandmother disappeared a year ago and the house has been empty since then.  Yet the house is in order, and the barn is clean and full of animals.  Who’s been caring for them or paying for their upkeep?  

The group starts looking around and exploring the farm. At one point her boyfriend asks May, “what do you want me to do with the boxes?”  Mary replies to unpack the in the kitchen.  What boxes? They didn’t bring anything with them. Why are there boxes? What is going on?  

The first one has scarecrow clippings about the killings. This raises questions about the beginning of the movie where the family living there says they have protected the land and kept the secret. Yet based on this box of clippings, the scarecrow doen’t seem to be a secret at all.

As expected the first night there, the scarecrow shows up and begins attacking people.  May turns out to look just like his murdered bride, which complicates things and results in her boyfriend yelling, “I’m the only one taking this bitch down the aisle.”  Classy indeed. Definitely don’t marry that guy.

The movie prompts two questions. First, if the scarecrow comes back every twenty years, then why does he appear when May and her friends are at the farm? The farm has only been vacant a year which means he appeared the year before. So she should be safe for the next 19 years.

Second , if the only time there is an issue is a 48 hour period every twenty years, is that really a problem?  Couldn’t you just go stay somewhere else for two days? The family who lived there prior to May said as long as they stayed in the house they would be safe, which is another really simple option.

And why don’t the cell phones work, but WiFi does? If they have WiFi, they can use their cells.

Ridiculous dialogue

Realtor - She was your grandmother. Her, her daughter and granddaughter vanished from this property.

May - What do you mean vanished?

Realtor - It’s like they picked up, packed up and vanished never to be seen again. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.

Continuity? We Don't Need no Stinking Continuity!

The case of the moving corpse
Death Curse of Tartu (1966)

The mystery of the corpse with the moving eyeballs
Zombie Undead (2010)

The riddle of the perm that grew out in a week
Star Slammer (1986)

The case of the hair that grew in minutes

Mr. Halloween (2006)

The puzzle of the changing hairstyle
Predator Island (2005)

The conundrum of the shorter haircut 
The Varrow Mission (1978)

The mystery of the blind man who was able to point at what he was talking about
Terror House (1998)

Curse of the Scarecrow (2018)

In the 1800s, townsfolk accused a man of stealing, and then tied him to a scarecrow post in a field where he was pecked to death by crows.  Every twenty years, he comes back to seek revenge and mistakes anyone he sees for one of his killers.

Carl and June’s parent were killed by the scarecrow twenty years ago. Carl goes to the farm to make the scarecrow pay, turns his back on a scarecrow and is immediately murdered. Good god man, why would you ever turn your back on a scarecrow when one murdered your parents?

After June gets the news of her brothers death, she heads out to the farm with her best friend. Along for the trip is her psychiatrist who seems to have crossed the line of professionalism and is far too friendly with her.  She helps her pack things in the house and does some shoddy hypnotism on her. The whole thing is odd.

June is uncomfortable with being on the farm since it’s where her  parents were murdered and her brother was recently found dead there. She doesn’t like the scarecrow on the property and there is that pesky legend about scarecrows killing people on the farm.  But her friend and her psychiatrist are not concerned. At least not until they try to cure June by unmasking the scarecrow on the post and find a dead girl.

At this point the characters make a plethora of terrible decisions. Over and over again, they do the worst thing they could possibly do in the situation at hand.When they find the dead girl, they stand there and scream until a scarecrow attacks them.  When they run to the car, they just sit there talking for awhile before driving off.

Instead of getting help, they drive back to the farm. Then they stand outside the back door looking into the dark to see if the scarecrow has caught up with them.  The psychiatrist volunteers to get help. When they say they’ll go with her, she says “stay here where you’re safe.”  Why would you ever think they’re safe? They’re on a farm with a scarecrow that kills people!

The scene with the psychiatrist going to the car is ridiculous. Instead of running to the car with key ready to unlock the door and jump in, she slowly sneaks along the wall and then sneaks over to a group of bushes.  This is the least safe option when trying to avoid a killer.  Then she slowly creeps along the edge of the car and fumbles with her keys.  But the car won’t start. Coincidence or does the scarecrow from the 1800s know how to disable an engine?  Then our incompetent psychiatrist falls out of the car and is unable to get up until the last second when she runs off into the woods. God forbid, she runs to the safety of the house.

With the psychiatrist in danger, the other two inexplicably feel bad for letting her run off on her own. Junes friend decides the best thing to do is go to the barn and grab a gun...the gun that is next to a scarecrow. Things work out about as well as you’d expect. Another person who turns their back on a scarecrow while knowing there is a murderous scarecrow in the vacinity. 

June ends up in the barn as well, where she puts on a flannel shirt, stuffs a little hay in it and holds out her arms, effectively disguising herself as a scarecrow. And when I say effectively, I mean not at all. She looks nothing like a scarecrow. Yet it somehow fools our killer scarecrow who starts trying to figure out what’s going on as he paws her.  June keeps saying, “I’m just like you.”  Really? In what way?  It’s absurd.  

So many questions left unanswered.

1. Why did the crows attack the man on the scarecrow post? A scarecrow is literally put up to scare crows. 
2. Why does everyone who believes there is a killer scarecrow turn their back on a scarecrow?
3. How much is the psychiatrist charging June for this 24 hour a day, multi-day coverage?
4. Even before they believed there was a killer scarecrow, there is a history of murders on the property every twenty years for a 48 hour period. Why would you ever go to the farm during that time period?
5. How can June be there within the 48 hour scarecrow murder time when the scarecrow already killed her brother?
6. Why do they think a gun will be an effective weapon against a dead scarecrow?
7. Why is there a scarecrow in the yard near the house where there is no crops?
8. When June goes to look at the scarecrow, she goes into the corn field. Are there two scarecrows? The other one wasn’t in a corn field.
9. How does June think she is just like the scarecrow?  She wasn’t murdered, pecked to death by crows, or have a burlap sack over her head.

The worst scarecrow ever. He’s standing on a box. He’s not in a field.
He’s only a foot off the ground and appears to be facing a fence.

Death of a Vlogger (2019)

 

Graham is a vlogger who posts prank videos and tries to capitalize on the latest trends hoping to get more hits. When he has eye surgery, he ends up with bandages over both eyes and while live streaming his recovery, things move in his apartment and an apparition is seen.  

The video goes viral and other people become invested in it.  Graham and his friend Erin team up with ghost hunter Steve to do a seance in the apartment. When more activity is seen, people get excited that there is proof of the supernatural. Others appeal to Graham asking for help to contact their recently deceased loved ones.

It is the grief stricken commenters hoping to reunite with loved ones  that brings Alice into the story. She is a paranormal debunker and believes that Grahams footage is fake.  She warns meets with Graham and Steve and warns an internet shaming will be coming to him if he faked the video and it won’t be pretty.  

The difference between this and most found footage films is it’s  presented as a documentary.  Along with the found footage shot by Graham, there are interview segments with Erin, Alice, Steve and Grahams friends.  I almost didn’t watch this movie because I didn’t like the cover. Then when the movie starts it’s one guy with a camera and immediately you think it’s going to be another crappy movie. There were a few really creepy things that happened. But I was bugged that Graham usually didn’t turn on the lights when there were strange sounds in the apartment. Just turn on the freaking lights, man!  Overall, it was ok. It kept my attention but it didn’t leave me wanting to tell other people to see it.