Attending this year's FrightFest with high hopes and much anticipation over Tape 407, from the first opening dialogue with the lead actress, my ear drums screamed in agony.
The voice grated. And grated the entire movie.
To cap it all off, the dialogue was clearly ad libbed throughout - the actors working from a storyboard for each scene, sometimes they pulled it off, mostly though, they didn't, and the audience is left cringing at some unintentionally hilarious lines.
If you can get over the tortuous scripting and delivery, the movie itself is actually quite high quality. Great cameras give us a crystal clear view of the action, and the sound (aside from the grating voice) is loud and breathtaking.
The director managed to capture brilliantly the crash scene, with the bass in the sound and the violent action on screen, he portrayed this with great skill and ease leaving us in no doubt what was happening.
It's a pity that this wasn't carried on post crash however.
From this point on, the credibility of the actors and movie, slips away, like memories over time. Which is a shame, because he almost, almost had a brilliant addition to the found footage genre. Poor scripting and at times, embarrassing dialogue, spoiled what had preceded it.
As we hear distant roars, growls and screams, hope builds, but, in a key scene in a disused shed, when we finally observe the source of the noise, all (and I mean all) credibility for the movie evaporates.
Dinosaurs.
I mean, had it been aliens, or indeed ghosts, then this movie would have probably made it and been decent, however, the moment we see the sub par CGI on screen, it becomes hilarious. Maybe it would have been better to leave such things to our imagination, or employed techniques used in movies like The Last Broadcast - where we don't really know what is killing people.
As the murderous creatures devour their way through the cast, we're left with the two lead actress' running for their lives, eventually bursting out into bright sunshine only to find out exactly where they have been all night....I'll leave the rest for you to find out, if you really want to.
In summary, a reasonable beginning spoiled massively by a ridiculous storyline - this movie won't add anything to the Found Footage genre unfortunately.
3/10
The voice grated. And grated the entire movie.
To cap it all off, the dialogue was clearly ad libbed throughout - the actors working from a storyboard for each scene, sometimes they pulled it off, mostly though, they didn't, and the audience is left cringing at some unintentionally hilarious lines.
If you can get over the tortuous scripting and delivery, the movie itself is actually quite high quality. Great cameras give us a crystal clear view of the action, and the sound (aside from the grating voice) is loud and breathtaking.
The director managed to capture brilliantly the crash scene, with the bass in the sound and the violent action on screen, he portrayed this with great skill and ease leaving us in no doubt what was happening.
It's a pity that this wasn't carried on post crash however.
From this point on, the credibility of the actors and movie, slips away, like memories over time. Which is a shame, because he almost, almost had a brilliant addition to the found footage genre. Poor scripting and at times, embarrassing dialogue, spoiled what had preceded it.
As we hear distant roars, growls and screams, hope builds, but, in a key scene in a disused shed, when we finally observe the source of the noise, all (and I mean all) credibility for the movie evaporates.
Dinosaurs.
I mean, had it been aliens, or indeed ghosts, then this movie would have probably made it and been decent, however, the moment we see the sub par CGI on screen, it becomes hilarious. Maybe it would have been better to leave such things to our imagination, or employed techniques used in movies like The Last Broadcast - where we don't really know what is killing people.
As the murderous creatures devour their way through the cast, we're left with the two lead actress' running for their lives, eventually bursting out into bright sunshine only to find out exactly where they have been all night....I'll leave the rest for you to find out, if you really want to.
In summary, a reasonable beginning spoiled massively by a ridiculous storyline - this movie won't add anything to the Found Footage genre unfortunately.
3/10