Really overwrought and unremarkable ghost story

Rating: 5/10 (10 October 2013)

After a series of vicious and brutal attacks in their new house, a couple's efforts to video-tape the culprit leads to a more harrowing series of attacks by the ghostly perpetrators and force them into ever more dangerous methods of getting away from the creepy beings.
Frankly, there's not enough here to really care at all for it. The main issue with this one is the main selling point of the movie, that the found-footage aspect of this one manages to completely undo the film on several vantage points. From the very first seconds of frame-time, the film makes a big deal about the whole effort being shot with a hulking video-camera instead of a smaller, more portable device throughout the duration of the film, and essentially that means numerous opportunities of having to handle the unwieldy object through situations that require the safety of their own well-being before documentation is required, so a lot of time is spent on them trying to keep the camera rolling rather than get to a safe location, and it really takes a lot of the suspense away from the scene. As well, the fact remains that the events have to be captured by the camera to be able to figure out what's going on as there's no way to tell what's going on from time-to-time, since the camera can't capture everything so noises, banging and scratches that go off-screen are exactly that, off-screen noises that leave no definitive take on what's going on. Those issues are combined with two other big negatives here, the ungodly amount of build-up that basically leaves this one with very little going on for the majority of the time since they're reacting to everything around them first before the main attacks come in, which really aren't that dangerous since the stationary camera doesn't go chase them to see what's going on and certainly makes this feel a lot longer than it should. That said, there's some good stuff here as the last half where the attacks actually get physical rather than just the odd or the off-screen are absolutely fun and enjoyable, including the beating in the bedroom hallway and the encounter in the dining room which are pretty creepy, and the fact that it's got a creepy story set-up works for it. Overall, it's a real mixed bag but ends up on the bottom rung of decent.
Rated R: Graphic Language and Violence.