THE SOCIAL COMMENTARY IN THE FILM

The themes in this film include the exploitation of tragedy and profiting off of people’s suffering. The film suggests there is a cost to turning real horror into a spectacle and our curiosity might have dire consequences.

I think there is also a critique of found footage itself here, as well as the obsession with documenting life instead of living it. The camera can distort the truth, but it also allows people to knowingly be “on,” creating a filter between reality and what we’ve documented.

This is seen as well through the documentary crew.

For more on this, check out our episode of TheNecronomi.Com with Jenny Kiefer of Butcher Cabin Books HERE.

WHAT I LOVED

I am late to this party as it was my first watch-through. I liked the clown a lot. I thought it was a super effective use of “that shouldn’t be moving.”

I liked the weirdness of the things Sarah was doing like speaking backward or randomly being downstairs.

I loved the scene right before Paul disappeared.

The performances were mostly realistic and natural. The dialogue was pretty good. While character development is often super limited in found footage films, I don't normally get a group of actors who feels like they might be legit friends in real life and I felt that here.

WHAT I DIDN’T

This is one of those movies that just isn’t for me. The jump scares don’t really get to me. I have zero fear of cults (in this context) or Hell, so I think there’s a large part of me that just doesn’t care. I see what others like in it, it just does nothing for me.

The end is a bit chaotic and really doesn’t make sense. It’s fun in the moment, I suppose, but breaking it down and thinking it out in… any… logical way it all just falls apart. It would’ve worked better for me with more backstory. Maybe there’s some in the other films. I don’t know. But if a film needs me to watch other films for it to work, it fails.

“The cops covered it up” is a huge loophole for me. There’s no reason for it. Either give us that reason or be branded lazy writers.

I hated that there was no reason to carry the camera around most of the time.

I really hate when Paul disappears and they don’t rewind the camera to see what happened to him. They just pick it up, while it’s still recording, and continue about life going “What happened?” I don’t know, asshole. Check the fucking footage.

FAVORITE PARTS

Definitely the clown. I like the first few minutes a lot, as we first see the place and  get the walkthrough. I like most of the characters, but some were very forgettable. I couldn’t tell you the difference between Tony and Alex for half the film.

The scene right before Paul disappears.

OTHER THOUGHTS

I don’t overly love the fact Sarah talks to the documentary people. I think it would be way stronger if they’d been waiting on Sarah to interview her and after a long enough time, they went up to the counter and found out she isn’t registered there and there’s no 2C. Maybe even have them try to go to her room, but none of the rooms have letters. Then finally give up and go to the house. This would’ve made Sarah much more interesting to me. It felt cheap to do it the way they did instead.