I saw this for free on Hooplah. It's actually an okay "found- footage" film, albeit a bit too short. The acting's good: There's great camaraderie amongst the cast which really helps sell some of the humor. Lance Henriksen makes a relatively brief cameo as the "spooky effects"-guy, and is -- of course -- awesome to watch (whatever someone might think of his film choices). The camera-work is good: neither too jumpy nor too focused like in a real camera shot. The special effects are what they are given that -- I'm assuming -- the film was probably given a paltry budget.
The conceit of the whole movie is that the F. B. I. is using the footage to get help in solving the murders of the crew of a paranormal T. V. show, called S. P. I. T. (the "Spiritual and Paranormal Investigative Team" . . . or, something like that). That part was kind of stupid. Spit?! I mean, . . . c'mon. I failed to see any humor in it, if that were the intent. The F. B. I. connection was also, in my humble opinion, totally unnecessary. It added nothing to the story and even confused it. Why was the Bureau involved at all? We know that the members of the crew were killed . . . but, were they missing, too? And, would their disappearance have even mattered, when the tapes showed their deaths? (I thought, the F. B. I. looked for missing people whom they hoped to be ALIVE.) At the end, the F. B. I. person reveals some screen (?)/box (?)/whatever, that only confused things further. I won't say what it is, because I honestly am still not sure what it was meant to be. Anyways, it felt like a moment of amateurism on the part of the writer, like: "Hey, let's throw in some weird stuff at the end to creep out the audience."
It just so happens that some guy is also following the crew around in order to film them for his documentary. So, having two cameras allows for some more possibilities: In other words, the documentary guy catches things that the "paranormals" don't while they tape their canned script to their own cameraman. But, it also has the effect of making the film feel more like a movie, rather than an authentic "found footage" experience. That might annoy some people.
There's no real blood, guts, or gore, except for a rather explicit throat-cutting. The film relies more on atmosphere, on which it pretty much delivers.
The film has a lot of missed opportunities. I do wish that it had done more -- a lot more -- with all the possibilities. I mean, you've got a place where: children were brutalized and molested . . . multiple suicides had occurred . . . doctors performed excruciatingly painful experiments on the inmates . . . a little seven year-old psychopath would go around slitting people's throats . . . and, a disbelieving film crew from a paranormal T. V. show that thinks it's all a bunch of laughs and "wind-blowing-through-cracks- in-the-walls." I mean: Where do you start?
It's a comfortable, easy film to watch. It's not boring . . . but, just don't expect too much.
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