This has turned out to be really long, sorry. I've tried to keep the paragraphs short.My housemate brought me some DVDs back from a charity shop and I knew I had to watch this one first, having preliminarily checked out a few reviews. I knew I needed to watch it before I ran out of beer and it potentially became unbearable. So at least with the beer, I don't want to hazard an opinion on without it yet, it wasn't entirely unwatchable.I was expecting a completely first-person hand-held thing, and I was a bit confused as to whether it was or not throughout most of the (nicely modest) running time, trying to work out whether a shot was supposed to be third-person or via a security camera or something. The video was apparently 25 fps but it seemed higher.But I came to the conclusion that some of it probably was intended to be third-person - because of sequences I'll go into in a minute and one shot which DID show "Surveillance Cam 16", which suggests the other stationary shots WEREN'T surveillance cams, if you see what I mean. I think part of the confusion stemmed from the general lack of differentiation between the two.The sequences I mentioned exactly a minute ago though were mainly attempted copies of the effects of other films, notably The Ring, which was of course a copy of Ring. And other shots with a bit of post-production work that would have been fairly effective, if derivative, if the rest of the film was presented in a similar way. Other notable digital effects included computer screens that weren't really on but which appeared to be on, but which you, reader, could probably do better given ten minutes in GIMP.Although I found myself not bothering to listen to most of the dialogue after a while, the religious, anti-science thing was weird and I didn't like it. I wouldn't actually have minded it I suppose if it was well-presented and worked in the context of the film, but because of lines like - and this is from a doctor (of something) apparently - "We only use 70% of our brains. We still don't know what the other 30% is for." (70% is even lower than the common fallacy of 90%.)This is followed up by a psychology student saying, "It literally is dormant for all practical purposes ... I mean, there have even been cases where the human brain has been able to project images on to unexposed film, for crying out loud!" My sister just graduated from a psychology degree and she wouldn't say anything like that.Oh and then another doctor (working in "Computer Science R&D", so she'd know) says "There's criss-crossing EM fields all over the earth. It's theorised that when a person walks through one of these EMF cages, it traps the electric impulses firing in their brain, in much the same way as you'd download a file to your home hard drive."Sorry, I'm giving away all the best lines. No no wait, just a couple more:"There's a whole nother world out there. While we're here fighting and killing on this plane, the real battle's out there, you know, between heaven and hell, for our immortal souls." (Nods meaningfully as the camera holds.)And: "One of the bees moved."But the ones more along the lines of "There's no such thing as an inhuman. We've proved/proved (unclear because the actor doesn't enunciate the word too well) it before, and I'll prove it again," where a scientist wouldn't claim to be able to prove the nonexistence of something, just that there wasn't enough evidence to suggest the existence of it...lines like that meant that any religious counterargument was baseless and thus unconvincing.But yeah, bits of it (including in fact the "I can't believe they actually said that, what are they talking about?" moments) were at least entertaining, even funny now and then. Like this bit (last time, I promise):A character at the bottom of some stairs kicks a stair, apparently on purpose, I don't know why (well I do know why, I'm being facetious: he was supposed to have stubbed his toe accidentally), which hurts of course, so he says "Argh, argh," to which the man with the biggest arms (and everyone likes big arms), who's made it successfully to the top of the stairs, replies "Stop being a biiitch. Come on!"And there's a funny possession of a woman.The acting's variable, but a lot of it's like if your friend was in an am-dram production and you enjoyed watching them because you like seeing them doing things that make them happy, and you congratulated them and said they were really good but you were being a bit kind. The cast's a bit bloke-heavy but unfortunately the female actors tended to be some of the least good at the acting thing.The lighting of the sets was pretty stagey too, and what everyone else said about the plinky piano music, they weren't exaggerating, but the more electronic stuff that's largely in the end credits was fine, I would have preferred more of that.Just over an hour into the thing there's what is apparently a helicopter shot, which I thought must be CG, then I thought it wasn't, which was a bit jarring because it presumably cost as much as the rest of the production put together. I mean I grew up on Troma, I have nothing against low production values, but this one didn't seem as self-aware as it needed to be.To its credit, the last minute recalled the end of, for its numerous sins possibly the first one of these films, Cannibal Holocaust.But bottom line, I wouldn't recommend it.

I read reviews before watching this so I didn't go in with some high expectations or anything like that but I'm a fan of paranormal movies so I wanted to give it a try. I am the type of person who feels the need to finish things. Every movie I've watched in my life, I feel the need to finish it no matter how bad it is because I want to know what happens and if it will get better. If I start a book but I'm not necessarily into it, I make myself finish it. I finish things... so it says a lot that I couldn't even watch this through. I can't put my finger on what exactly made it so bad to me but it was just bad. I watched a little over the first thirty minutes and actually skipped parts after that a time or two. Then I jumped to the end... I'm sure some people will enjoy it anyway and that's great. For me personally, I didn't like it much at all. It wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. I suggest you watch Grave Encounters if you want something like this (only better).

Oh my good Lord in heaven. What the hell did I just watch. I thought when I bought this on Ebay for 99Cents that I was getting a good deal. Ooh boy how wrong I was, this film doesn't deserve to occupy one second of someone's left , let alone 81 minutes. How can rubbish like this make it too DVD. The acting is atrocious and completely amateur. I felt like I was watching a grade 8 stage play. Yes and now for the pathetic ghosts and seemed like people in costumes darting around here and there. Shame on you film makers trying to cash in on this enervated horror sub genre. God and I thought V/H/S was awful, well its academy awards material compared to this dreck. Anyone that wants to see a good found footage film seek out aussi's The Tunnel, Evil things or even paranormal entity. Now those are spooky films.

The premise of this movie is perfectly sound: cynical paranormal researchers get to investigate the most haunted place ever in order to prove to a dying man who has lived an evil life that there is no afterlife. However, to balance them out (and give the plot some tension), they are teamed with a rival Christian team who believes in everything. The only problem is, within 5 minutes in the asylum, the sceptics seem to believe in all supernatural events as much as their Christian rivals.As the two teams do their stuff, they are stalked and toyed with by various apparitions, leading them to an unbelievably cheesy confrontation with a demon at the end.The director gives away far too much too early, and instead of framing everything in a context whereby the phenomena are less certain to the sceptical team, he blows his load in the first quarter of the movie, leaving you without suspense, tension, or horror.The reality show idea had a lot of promise, but instead this entire movie ended up becoming nothing more than a tedious Christian tract with a tedious and blatant morality punchline.