I'm sorry they found the footage

Rating: 3/10 (6 August 1999)

What a disappointment! Perhaps if I had thought, as apparently some friends of mine did, that this was real as opposed to a movie, I might have been genuinely frightened. Instead I was bored. A group of people screaming at each other and telling us that they are scared is not, in itself, frightening. At some point, something has to happen.
The 'innovative' approach of this film, while certainly a good idea, is very frustrating in execution. On a large screen the jerkiness of the film is at times almost nauseating. The camera frequently focuses on the ground as whichever character that is holding it lets their arm drop, and at times it isn't actually focused at all. The result - a static and blurred image accompanied by off-camera arguing - is less than appealing.
The central characters do a good job of improving their way through the scenes (they are decent actors), but the lack of structure leads to some fairly aimless, pointless scenes.
Finally, it's not scary. The idea that what we can't see is more frightening than what we can see has been used to great effect in the past (witness Robert Wise's 'The Haunting') but only in very carefully made films. Edge-of-your-seat tension must be painstakingly built, and cannot happen by accident.