This film came out 16 years after Book of Shadows. I had read that it was well received at the film festival. Well, don’t trust film festivals because they are filled with pompous assholes. Lesson learned, right? Let’s get down to business and discuss the plot and try to get through this as quick as possible so I can eat some Count Chocula.
The plot is simple, which I like. James is the younger brother of Heather from the original. By the way, Book of Shadows basically never happened, for better or worse. James sees a found footage video on YouTube so he gets Lisa, Peter, and Ashley to bring all of their camera gear to find out more info. I get it, for a found footage film, everybody needs some kind of camera, but damn, it feels silly at times. So they meet up with Lane and his sister, Talia. Lane uploaded the video and wants to show them where, but only if he and Talia can come along. Maybe they aren’t related, who cares?
So they have all this high tech shit, a drone, GPS, walkie-talkies, ear-mounted cameras. Shit still happens. Ashley cuts her foot bad and has some parasite or some shit. The first night, apparently Lane and Talia set up some of the figurines, so they get banished from the group. The other 4 want to leave because it’s all been bullshit. They naturally go to leave and make a circle, and Ashley gets progressively worse.
That’s about where I will stop the spoilers. I think you could surmise most of this shit was going to happen anyway. They showed more of the entity and witch. I was fine with that. What I hated was the insane amount of stupid jump scares. I got sick of it and really stopped paying attention, to be honest. You are not going to win me over with jump scares. What bums me out is that I actually really like the director, Adam Wingard. This wasn’t for me. This felt way more fantasy and less horror at times. I can’t say that enough wasn’t explained because I probably wasn’t paying attention, so I will accept that loss. Why the 5 nights without sunshine stuff though? Why add these weird powers, like snapping ____ in half? I have so many questions, and I really am not going to bother trying to find answers. At least the ending was satisfying and climatic.
I want to briefly talk about the acting. I thought that Wes Robinson (Lane) and Valorie Curry (Talia) played their roles exceptionally well. I think Corbin Reid as Ashley also did a good job, and even James Allen McCune did well as James. Callie was fine in the Lisa role, I just didn’t like the role. Brandon Scott as Peter was glaringly meh to me. It was the role more than the actor, I think. He just grated on my nerves way too often. Normally, I like the black dude in horror flicks, so this saddens me.
Rating: 3.7 This is the worst film I have seen this October of 2018, but I am sure I will see worse. I have been cherry picking, but I thought I would like this. SO I am self admittedly saddened that I have to rate this so lowly. I will probably never see this one again. The jump scares were overly obnoxious and took me right out of the film really fast. By the halfway point, I was ready to tap out. If you like jump scares and found footage, you should really enjoy this one. It was well done for what it was, it just wasn’t for me.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
Please go find a copy and support the creators.
Finally, I am doing a GoFundMe to help pay for the costs to keep 9deuce.com up and running. I don’t make any money off of the site. I do it because I love it, but it is expensive at times, and I had to recently renew for 3 years. So I am asking any of my readers to consider donating if they have the extra funds. If you don’t, I get it. It would mean a lot to me.
https://www.gofundme.com/keep-9deucecom-alive
