They're Watching

Plot synopsis:
The crew of a popular home-improvement TV show heads to a remote village in Moldova to film a follow-up segment about an American homeowner, Becky, who's been transforming a rundown house into an artist's haven. The crew, consisting of Greg, Alex, and newcomer Sarah, meet up with their producer Kate and a Moldovian businessman named Vladimir. While getting some footage of the town, Greg and Sarah sneak into a funeral and attempt to record it, only to be exposed when Kate calls them. A police officer manages to calm the furious crowd before ordering them to leave.
The crew continue filming over the next few days, only to repeatedly find themselves at the receiving end of hostility and suspicion from the locals, including an old woman who sneaks into Sarah's hotel room to chant a prayer at her. Vladimir tells the crew a story about how the village had once been struck by a plague, and they accused a woman who lived alone outside of town of being a witch before burning her at the stake. Becky shows the crew a mural on the wall of her cellar that depicts the story.
The crew go to a bar and attempt to make peace with the locals, only for a drunk Sarah to instigate a fight by loudly shouting "witch". The next day, they rush to finish filming at Becky's home so they can leave Moldova as soon as possible. However, they discover their car has been vandalized and rendered unusable, forcing them to spend the night with Becky and wait for her boyfriend to arrive the next morning. Vladimir offers to walk to town and bring back a taxi.
A few hours later, Becky and Sarah discover Vladimir's dead body crucified onto an outdoor furnace, and the crew barricade themselves inside the house. Later that night Kate disappears, and they find her nailed to the roof of the barn with her intestines hanging out. Sarah spots Becky's boyfriends car in the barn, and she and Alex believe that Becky is killing everyone as vengeance for Kate having an affair with her boyfriend six months prior. The villagers begin breaking into the house, forcing everyone to flee into the basement. There, Sarah uncovers a mural that depicts the production crew's entire stay in Moldova, including their deaths, as well as a demonic Becky surrounded by fire.
Becky reveals herself as a real witch (implied to be the same witch as in Vladimir's story) who brought the crew to Moldova to witness her vengeance on the villagers, and she drinks from a large vat of blood that has the decomposed body of her boyfriend floating in it. She disintegrates Greg, prompting Sarah and Alex to escape into the woods. They run into an angry mob of villagers, and Sarah is murdered by the police officer with an axe to the head. Becky appears and uses her powers to brutally and bloodily kill all of the villagers while a terrified Alex records everything. After everyone is dead, Becky orders Alex to share the footage of her rampage with the world before disappearing. The film ends as a blood-soaked and traumatized Alex wonders how he will explain everything to his boss.

Tags: murder

Review:
Meta-funny.It don't want to give anything away, but i'll say you have to stick with it.Yes, it is a scary movie and at first it seems VERY lame.
By the end, it's BRILLIANT, very lame, a dark, funny comedy.When I first put it on, after seeing a Netflx ad for it, I was immediately disappointed, so I started doing housework and barely paying attention.
The build-up is great and handled with class and then the conclusion gives the film some X-factor and memorability.It's a found footage film, which despite copping a lot of flack, is still a very effective film-making method, allowing directors to create a very realistic feel in their films.
The twist at the end is the icing on the cake and tops off a fine horror film very nicely..
If you like a comedy horror with smart jokes and not just mindless killing, you will LOVE this movie.
Don't take the movie too seriously and you will have a great time watching it.
Great found footage movie that doesn't get bogged down in over- seriousness and has a sense of fun, while at the same time being really creepy.
The characters are likable enough and the dialogue works, you can really tell that a lot of thought went into the filming and that the whole thing must have been a lot of fun.As for the story itself, it evolves at a nice pace and plays with audience expectations a bit, especially towards the end.
There is something creepy going on at least every few minutes but a lot of it is in the background so you also get to know the characters quite a lot as the film progresses.Overall this is a smart and enjoyable horror with a decent amount of comedy and character work thrown in.
I would recommend this to anyone who doesn't hate found footage movies and also say that for the most part the filming is actually important to the story in this case..
But again, its a love or hate thing.Gore 2/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 4/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5.
I can't believe how many viewers don't seem to grasp that this is primarily a comedy, there are too many bad reviews based on the tremendously incorrect assumption that it was intended to be a flat out horror.
As a person who's watched many of the types of shows depicted in this movie and even gone house hunting in a similar country, this film is gold.
The only thing I didn't like were some of the characters choices near the end, you know, the typical bad horror movie choices that have you screaming at the screen "no!
There were some nice surprises, I was thoroughly entertained throughout, the cast were fantastic, found footage made much more sense than in most serious horror movies, and it had plenty of laughs for those of us familiar with the type of show/experience they're parodying.It's not a block buster type movie, not made for pleasing the masses but it had that very unusual, unexpected gem quality about it.
If you read a review of this movie calling it terrible, then rest assured, that reviewer didn't get what these filmmakers were going for.They're watching isn't a horror film.
To read that "nothing happened" and it "wasn't scary until the end" means that the film fooled some percentage of it's watchers.
Of course, it is no more a horror film than a Simpsons or Family Guy episode with ghosts and witches would be a scary cartoon.
When I saw the poster for this horror movie at a local theater I felt I give it a shot.I was already not on the films side when I saw that it was a found footage film.
It wasn't.As...Interesting as it was to watch a reality TV show crew film an episode about some artist who has fixed up a crappy house she brought, located outside of an Eastern European village, and they were an interesting set of horror Archetypes, I'll give them that much, the whole thing ate far too much time and did hardly nothing to built up a movie that's suppose to be in the horror genre.It's not like the horror movie, The Which that creeps you out for an hour than hits you with the strange, it's more like from Dust till Dawn where it starts as one movie and becomes another.
I'm wondering how a film with the type of special effects I've seen done far better by kids on You Tube videos gets any sort of theatrical run.
I sure hope that it was the filmmaker's intention to make the movie this campy, because all this "horror" film is worth is a good laugh.I think I can put this in the so bad it's good category.
Another Awful Found Footage Horror Film.
Six months later, the American producer Kate Banks (Carrie Genzel) and her crew consisting of the cameraman Alex Torini (Kris Lemche), the audio operator Greg Abernathy (David Alpay) and newly hired assistant Sarah Ellroy (Mia Faith) arrive in Moldova.
What will happen to them?"They're Watching" is another awful horror film in this dreadful and lame found footage genre.
By the end of this film I was wishing the witch would jump out of the screen and just kill me so I didn't have to watch it anymore.
Small details such as a woman standing outside of a window for twenty straight minutes and no one thinking that something might be up.To keep things short, this movie is a Comedy.
It begins like many found footage horror movies, but then it deadpans, and then suddenly decides not to take itself seriously.
It's an hour of awful acting (some of the worst I've ever seen), and then it snaps into some kind of wild horror art film.
i think this movies just sums up the US, as well as the shallowness of Hollywood, pointless story,dreadful acting, empty dialogues and script, kindergarten effects both audio and visual.
i really wonder how this films are actually allowed to be filmed, and how the producers, actors and directors, etc feel about making such nonsense garbage people just do not watch this, its pointless, plus the Moldovan government should sue them too, cause i am thinking to do that, as i thought of all the possible ways to commit suicide while watching this.
A quite good horror movie that falls in the last 15 minutes.
The acting is good, the script is decent and I was enjoying the movie quite a bit.
Unfortunately at the end the filmmakers decide to pull out all the stops and throw in quite a lot of cgi/special effects that, due to the budget, are quite terrible.
. The actual ending itself isn't necessarily bad either, it's just the effects that will make you cringe.
So bad it's good content,enjoy the sheer terribleness that makes it so awesome.
It was no jewel, I mean your typical terrible movie, wannabe spooky creepy stuff,but as everything was revealed, boy oh boy did it become sooo bad that it's good.
So if you're into the so bad it's good type, then the ending will not disappoint.
Let me start by saying I am a big horror fan and have seen both the good and the bad of indie productions.
I typically reserve reviews for movies that have a significant amount of phony planted reviews and boy is this one of them.It suffers every cliché on the list for shaky cam/documentary style films including unlikeable characters, stupid decision making, and LOTS of wasted screen time that in no way was necessary to the plot.
If you love SciFi channel level cheesy special effects then maybe you will love the finale (seriously it looks bad, going against the basic rules of low budget production).Spare yourself that misery of reading all the bloated scores and watching this mediocre mess..
You have to try to make a good movie and fail spectacularly in order for it to be funny.
Great Movie That Was Ruined by the Ending.
It's almost like they had a great writer and director for most of the movie and replaced them with a twelve-year old at the end.
Isn't it funny how there is always one egghead that has to defend a bad movie by saying the majority of people who watched it didn't get it.
The reviewer went on to say that the movie was supposed to be a campy spoof about American reality shows.
In fact, the movie doesn't get campy (or in my mind "stupid") until the end.
Up to that point, the movie was neither a spoof or campy - it was simply a shaky cam horror movie.BTW, I'd like to inform that reviewer that using the worst cartoon-like CG effects at the end does not a campy movie make..
They're Watching actually has pretty much material to be a standard found footage film.
A workable idea about witches and legends around a small town, local freaks, Americans with lot of swearing, and idea about witches actually pretty lame, but due its lameness, I thought fewer finally did a movie about that.
Which makes the idea may developed freshly.All of swearing jokes and dull character development, surprisingly, are lovable and enjoyable to watch.
I almost want to stop the movie right now.I know it is comedy horror, but knowing that 90's ghost fx reappear in found footage film seems really nonsense.
The different nature of CGI in this film, maybe like what a exploitation-genre in 80s resurrect today with found footage.
That's good....Some decent acting and some really, really bad acting which pulled me out of being able to enjoy the film.
It is one of those movies that is supposed to be real, but it was the bad acting that kept ejecting me from being able to like the movie.And I think it must have been the directing.
I enjoyed him quite a bit.Truly horrible acting—Kindergarten Thanksgiving Plays have better acting: Carrie Genzel: Terrible!
If you have an hour and a half, and can sift through horrible acting, you may like this movie..
The conversations don't feel authentic which was a feeling the movie was going for.Brigid Brannagh plays Becky, I enjoyed her acting in Army Wives and she easily does the best performance of the film.
She has believable reactions and adds to the poor writing with her acting.The worst actress in the film and probably what brought it down further for me was Carrie Genzel who plays Kate.
If you are thinking of watching this movie hold on for a moment.
I think there must be some other work that I am sure is much more better that watching this movie.
The characters try to do justice to their roles but when you are cast in such a story with such a worthless director you have nothing much to do.Based on the theme of witch and found footage movie, it fails in all segments.
There is not a single element of horror in this movie and most of the time you will ask yourself why I am watching this.
never let this or any other review stop you from watching any movie, no one truly knows why anyone likes a movie and the person next to you doesn't.I really like movies like Plan 9 and Robot Monster as well Cinderella Man all the marvel comics stuff a lot of mainstream hits a bunch of art house carp the classic German criminal film series M.
So This is a the absolute last found footage movie I can take all of these movies you see why someone holds on to the camera but here it is so ridiculous I don't think the person at the end is physically capable of holding it.so dumb so funny not scary all I did.
She married some local guy and now 6 months later the crew is there to film what they did with the place.The format of this movie is POV, who knew they will still using that awful format.
So we actually get to see some sights of Romania, playing Moldova, as the crew drives to the town, then to the house in the woods, then back to town.One day the camera guy and the intern go exploring and decide to film everything...a point they make repeatedly in this movie.
The crew's car is destroyed, there's no cell phone reception, someone ends up dead, they discover some secrets and...let's just say that the town isn't quite done with the witch story.I dislike found footage movies.
I'm not a fan of movies that don't do much of anything for most of the time and wait for the very end to give us story and action.
Despite They're Watching being predictable in doing everything I dislike about POV movies, I'm going to give it a generous score.
Unlike most of these movies that manage to cast only unattractive folks, They're Watching has the gorgeous and angelical Mia Faith...but it puts her most of the time...behind the camera!?!
Making a found footage movie just to make one, using the same tired story of a paranormal incident in the woods, only changing the cast members and title, is what gives this genre a bad name.
It doesn't take itself too seriously, and it was oddly enjoyable.This is where I feel the spoiler part comes in to my review, because I detail a little more than I would like if talking to someone who hasn't seen the movie.
It made me rofl because the first major part of the movie was just watching their process, some stumbles in their travels and watching a vague tension develop between the film crew and the locals.
After watching all but 11 minutes of the movie up to that point I just was not expecting that.
Well after watching this film, I have many mixed feelings, but most in a good way.We start out watching a film crew that seems to be based on a house hunting abroad type of show.
With that being said, this film actually starts off kind of fun, mimicking shows like "house hunters international", and that's where the similarities end.After the burst of humour in the first five minutes or so, I would suspect it would wear off, and it did, but not in a way of a "Scary Movie" type of film, but it just went in a different direction.The next scenes we witness include really over the top acting, but about fifty minutes into the film it was actually not too bad, the acting seemed to get better as time moved on, we get the distracted feeling of prediction of the story itself, but for some reason on how it was implemented seemed to keep breathing new life into this film."They're Watching" is a well constructed film based on old values of folk stories, with a modern twist, in the end that modern twist could possibly time stamp this film, it did have at sometimes terrible CGI, but remember keep the budget in mind, and just use your imagination.
In my opinion this would have worked better as a segment in the "VHS" movie franchise, there just wasn't enough content here to make a full length film.
The ending is cool, but the rest of the movie is very boring.4/10.
It was never a great piece of film making but the ending just completely ripped it apart and ruined it totally..
The cast also brings in some low-key humor that is amusing while at the same time coming across as realistic instead of forced.However, despite those aforementioned good elements, the movie doesn't really work.
Yes, time should be devoted to set up the situation and the characters, but the movie takes way too long with this.
If you are really patient, you'll be eventually rewarded with a somewhat wild climax, but I don't think it's enough compensation for the slow and dreary time that unfolded just before it, especially since the special effects in this sequences are kind of cheesy at times.This is definitely not the worst "found footage" movie that's out there - there are some good things in it - but you'll see that it could have been a great deal better than it actually is..
Watch this movie like when you watch a reality type show.
Like other reviewer said this is good because it's bad.
That's the premise you have to understand before you watch this movie.
Because who choose a house makeover type of a reality show setting to make a horror movie?
That's the reason why I rate this movie 5.For the most of parts, it's kinda dull, but I still had fun watching maybe because I know Kris Lemche(Alex) from Haven.
However, she is a typical young spoiled dumb princess who doesn't know when to shut up although that could be the director's intention because you know what's gonna happen to her at the end in the first 5 minutes of this movie.
Maybe it's a message from the film makers of this movie, "don't take any reality shows seriously" lolAnyways, if you understand a sense of humor in B horror flicks, you wouldn't regret spending 90 minutes of your life for this movie.
May contain spoilers.The premise of They're Watching is an entertaining one, and the movie begins with promise.
Unfortunately the film is little more than bones.The thing I hated most about They're Watching was Kate (Carrie Genzel), the angry, spiteful producer of House Hunters.
So, like most 'found footage' style films, you're in for about 80 minutes of bad character development, dialogue, and mediocre acting, before the 15 minute finale, which by then, you won't care about, anyway.While the director focuses on character development for the first 80 minutes, he still can't manage to produce a single likable, or interesting character.
maybe.Random Ramblings of a Madman: So, yeah, the film is slow, full of bad dialogue, and dull characters.