Here’s IMDB’s description/summary: “When a videographer answers a Craigslist ad for a one-day job in a remote mountain town, he finds his client is not at all what he initially seems.” Oh yay, it’s handheld horror…..sigh. You cheap fucks, make a scary movie that doesn’t rely on this. Well, this has a cast of 2, the star is also the writer and director. His character’s name is Aaron.
So Aaron shows up, and nobody is home, so he waits, gets startled by Josef, yes, that’s how it is spelled. Fucking nazis. Josef is like the super comfy dude, cool with hugging right off the bat. Josef is a cancer survivor. 2 months ago, he has a baseball-sized tumor that is inoperable in his brain, so I think that’s why he is hiring Aaron. Josef has a baby on the way and wants to just make a video diary for his unborn son. The video quality is shit, seemingly intentional. Josef seems like a really nice dude. Josef invites Aaron upstairs, and he is stripping to get in the tub. Thanks for the pube view!
Josef wants to have tub time with his boy, and it’s just really awkward as he is pretending to bathe his son in the tub with him. Really fucking awkward. I assume that this is what the movie will be playing to. Josef is saying how this is sad and how he could just end it now. He then slides down in the tub and holds his breath, scaring Aaron, and then, of course, it’s all a joke to have a jump scare. Sooo yeah. Aaron wanted to get a breather outside, and Josef told him to grab a coat from the closet, and another jump scare attempt due to a wold mask in the closet. Josef then wears it and sings a song about being “Peach fuzz”. Let me be very clear, at this very moment, I hate the lame attempts at jump scares and this film is quickly losing my judgmental ass.
So now they are out in the woods, following a trail, Josef sees something and goes running after it leaving Aaron behind. I am so waiting for another jump scare. Aaron can’t find him. And there it was. Fuck OFF! Why did this have 4 and a half star recommendation for me? Josef is pointing out who that aside from scaring Aaron, he noticed Aaron may have wanted to kill him. Josef keeps kinda hinting towards violence in a joking way. The foreshadowing……yeah. Aaron is concerned that Josef has gotten them lost, and Jo just gives some bullshit answer. They get up on top of some rocks, find a heart shaped hole in a rock below. A miracle…..of course, it is. We have now had like 3-4 awkward man hugs.
20 minutes in, and now it’s time to go get pancakes at a diner. So, they had no problem navigating their way back out. Jo wants to know if Aaron has done something that he was ashamed of. SO let’s hear Aaron’s dumbass.
Josef will record this dumb story. Aaron used to pee his pants as a kid a lot. His mom bought some device that attached to his arm, and this would monitor when he was wet. So he was playing in the sandbox, and then he didn’t feel like going, so the device went off. Really?? Now Josef wants to tell a story. Josef shows pictures of Aaron as he was arriving and is showing them to him on his phone. OK. His rationale is that if he got to know Aaron before he met him, so he wasn’t so scared. He apologizes. I am apologizing to myself for sitting through this.
Aaron is ok with this. Can we go back to the pancakes? Nope, back at Josef’s place, and it is night time. Aaron says that he would like to head back now. Josef acts surprised, and he wanted to pour Aaron a whiskey. Josef is kinda pushy about Aaron staying so that they can toast and celebrate, one drink. Aaron caves. As Aaron enters the house, we get another instance of the jump scare. So fucking sick of that shit. Josef asks Aaron why he is even there, like if he has money problems. Josef talks about all the money that he has accumulated. He wants to give Aaron some money. Aaron isn’t comfortable, but Josef is insistent.
Aaron wants to leave, and Josef says that he lied to him. About Peach fuzz. And here we go. He needs to get something off of his chest. Josef wants him to sit down and turn the camera off. Oh, we get subtitled audio. Well, now I gotta read and type. Josef did something bad, the internet got slow at his place. He was told that maybe his browsers history was full. Really? So Josef went home and found lots of bestiality porn. Well only him and his wife used it, but she denied it. So there was a rift formed. They go up to the very cabin they are in now, and Jo tells her that he got called into work, but that was a lie. He went to a store, bought a wolf mask. He comes back to the cabin 3 hours later, he breaks into the cabin while wearing the mask. OK……I’m hoping that this leads to rape. So he ties her up and wakes her up. They proceeded to have animalistic sex. He’d never seen her so happy. He escaped through the window and left her there tied up. He returns the next day, he asks her how her night was, and she says it was fine, with a casual smile. They never spoke of it. They went home, and in the following weeks, the internet got back up to speed. He admits that he raped his wife. And that is all. Fucking letdown.
Camera is on, and Jo is trying to talk and Aaron wants to wrap it up and bounce. He can’t find his keys. Josef wants to do another take, but Aaron is frazzled looking for his keys. “Aaron, did I freak you out with my rape story?” HAHA, line of the film. Jo suggests that he spend the night as he is legally over the limit, and Aaron resignates himself to this fate. Aaron pours more drinks and says “Bottoms up.” That’s the name of a fantastic Nickelback song…….”fantastic” for all the wrong reasons. Jo says that the whiskey tastes weird to him. He is trying to film his final take for the video for his boy. And now Josef is passed out on the couch.
I am putting way too much effort into this blog I feel.
Josef wakes up asking Aaron why he did that and then passes out again. And then Jo puts his hand down his pants and starts rubbing his dick. Fan fucking tastic. He says to come over and join him.
So we’re at the halfway mark. I refuse to believe that something incredibly fucked up won’t happen by the end of this. It doesn’t get this high of a rating without something crazy, right? So, they have spent all of this time establishing Jo as the creep, obviously, but what if the whole thing is Aaron has spiked Jo’s booze and Aaron is the crazy one all along? The switcheroo if you will? I’m not going to lie, I really hope this is the direction that they go, or that there is rape. Wait, there’s only 2 people cast in this whole film, both are dudes. OK, I will pass on the rape. Bones breaking or limbs cut off or some gruesome torture would be a delight though. OK, let’s see where this goes. I’d say that if you don’t want to be spoiled, this would be a good place to stop watching, as my horror instinct is rumbling. This is turning point material.
Aaron looks like he is trying to get in Jo’s jacket pocket, yup, being very slow. Probably looking for his keys. Nope, his phone. And of course, the phone goes off really loudly for the next jump scare. It’s Angela calling for Josef. Angela is confused who the hell Aaron is. He explains that he is the guy that they hired to make the cancer video. She asks him where he is. She recommends that he just leaves. Exit the house and he’ll be fine. She asks for the address of where he is at and tells him to screw finding the car keys, to get out of the house and keep walking. I feel like Jo is due for another jump scare any moment now, right? She informs him that her brother has problems. Uh oh, so not his wife. He asks if Jo even has cancer, and she is saying that Aaron needs to get out of the house now, and he gets out of the bathroom, and Josef is not where he was. After like 2-3 minutes of bullshit silence, he makes his way outside, and Josef tells Aaron that death is coming. He starts crying because he doesn’t want to die. The fuck?
Aaron admits that he knows that Josef is troubled, and he wants to help him. He asks for his keys. He then says Angela, and Josef runs into the house, down the stairs in such a hurry. Here we go again, waiting for the next jump scare. I’m gonna have a protein shake.
Well, he finds Josef wearing the stupid fucking wolf mask. He asks Josef to let him go. He asks if he will let him go. Josef shakes his head no. “Are you trying to scare me?” and Josef nods yes. This is the kind of silliness that you rarely get in other films. Annnd then this happens. Josef starts dancing, grinding his ass, swaying side to side making growling noises as Aaron repeatedly tells him to stop it, and then Aaron charges Jo and the camera goes dark.
And it’s the next day, and Josef is out hauling 2 dark garbage bags that are clearly heavy and very full. He is struggling a bit. Oh my bad, 3 of them. He is on a hill of sorts and places them there and gets them to stop teetering. And now he has a shovel, and he’s gonna dig him a hole. Wait, now Aaron is inside and showing us, the audience, and explaining stuff to us. After the scuffle, Jo ran off. Aaron had to get his car towed home. He thought that it was over, wrote it off as a weird thing that happened. So this video of him digging a hole was actually mailed to him a couple of days later, indicating that he knows where Aaron lives. I am starting to lose hope that Aaron is the real psycho here, damn-it.
Aaron can’t figure out what is supposed to be in the bags, or what they represent. He wants to get rid of the video and be done with it. Now it’s night time, and Aaron is having nightmares about being in a hot tub with Jo. Jo has the wolf mask on and Aaron has a baby wolf mask on. Keep in mind, he is simply verbalizing this shit. Jo pours some wine over Aaron’s head. He interprets this as when Jo was doing the dumb shit in the bathtub earlier, getting a tubbie. Something weird about the water, and he reaches up but he is covered in blood.
The next day, he has a package from the delivery guy. It’s a big box marked fragile. He hits and swats the box, and slowly unpack-ages it. And he finds a butcher knife, and a DVD labeled “ME”. Sweet. It’s Josef apologizing for the last video. He acknowledges finding the pill bottle that was used to knock him out during the whiskey night. He says he was emotionally unstable, and it was a tit for tat thing. He says that he is guessing that Aaron has yet to discover the 3rd item in the box. Cue Brad Pitt saying “What’s in the box?” I’d say odds on favorite would be the mask, but with this movie, who the fuck knows? It’s a stuffed animal, like a wolf pup. Josef says that he loves how wolves are violent and loving. He brings up when Aaron had that murderous look earlier in the film. He encourages Aaron to use the knife to murder stuff, because it’s beautiful. He also has another surprise for him. “See ya soon buddy!” Aaron rips open the wolf to find a necklace with like a heart-shaped pendant, or locket. Inside is a picture of Jo on one side, and Aaron on the other, and on the back of the pendant it reads “J + A Forever”, so now it’s time to call the cops.
Aaron is installing a new lock on his door and calls the cops, reports Josef. Come to find out, the cabin is not his, it’s a rental. The cops won’t do anything or even try. Aaron is pissed and paranoid.
It’s night time, Aaron wakes up, still having nightmares. He hears something while he is talking. He then goes back to talking about the hot tub and when you sit down, they have retractable spikes. Is he talking about getting anally penetrated? The world may never know because he just heard an even louder noise, so lights go on and he flips out. He grabs the knife and is standing his dining room asking who’s there, you know, typical paranoid shit. Josef is standing at the door blankly staring but Aaron never sees him and then Josef disappears. Time grab the fucking camera and go looking outside. Here’s my issue. Like, I would be calling mother fuckers to come to my place. I’d barricade my ass inside until I had the Cavalry come, you know, like The Wolf in Pulp Fiction. Yup a Wolf reference in a movie with lots of wolf talk.
So fuckhead goes outside and wanders like a jackass as the tension builds up, and trash can is tipped over. Ohhhh. Now we see the camera moving as Aaron is sleeping. Jo is clearly working it. This is definitely creepy. Oh, and now it is time to cut a lock of Aaron’s hair. In the morning, he finds a DVD labeled “MY LAST VIDEO” and the screen to his window is torn open. Let’s see what is on the video. Oh, and we now know that Jo went through the garbage, found the first video as well as the locket, and that upset poor Josef. Sad after the whole heart rock silliness. It sent Josef into a spiral because it hurt him. He wanted to do bad things to Aaron and to himself. He says that Aaron was right to throw it all away. So Josef says that he wants to be done and apologizes. He wants to be truthful. He doesn’t know what is wrong with himself. He says that he has burned every bridge with parents and his sister, due to his behavior. He asks him if he would be willing to talk to him, to show him who he really is at a very public place. He says that he is sad and lonely and that Aaron is his only chance at having a friend.
Well, naturally Aaron is a dumbass and shows up at the location and is filming it with his speed dial set for 911. Aaron walks to a bench and we get a very wide-angle view here. Jo creeps up behind him. He has a nice coat on and now he slides the mask on. And he stands behind Aaron, just standing. Josef pulls an axe from his coat. He creeps slowly up. He pulls the axe over his head and then drops it on Aaron’s head. And then he chops away at him again. Mind you, Aaron had just looked back less than 5 seconds before Josef shows up in frame. So, in a wide-open park space, that seems believable.
Now we see Josef watching the video and now he is talking to the camera, saying how smart Aaron was in filming it and the speed dial. He calls Aaron dumb for never turning around. He says Aaron was the greatest person ever. He says that Aaron believed that Jo was gonna be a good guy. Aaron will be Josef’s favorite of them all. And we go back to the video and Josef is saying how it’s all ok, not a care in the world, that peaceful thing that Carrie and Friday the 13th used to do. And suddenly there is somebody screaming into the camera for that last jump scare. That scared poor Josef.
Now we hear Josef get a phone call. He says “Yes, this is Bill” and he explains the job of filming. We see first person perspective of him walking to a closet of sorts and there are countless videotapes and discs all with names labeled on them, presumably of other victims. And then he adds a DVD labeled “AARON” and he tells the guy on the phone that he will see him later. And end film.
I know, you are wondering, why did I just write a blog about this? Well, because it was short and highly recommended to me on NetFlix. Duhhhh. I’ve had a day to really think about it, I hate knee jerk reactions to things that aren’t instantly charming, like Dreamcatcher, but over time, they can be looked back fondly. I can say, the jump scares were obnoxious and simultaneously funny. I’d prefer to not have them, but if you have to use them, this was a solid way. There was some comedy to this. Him grinding his ass against the door while wearing the mask, that was something to behold, both good and bad. This is one of those films that every main point can be argued as good and or bad. And that is where I am stuck. I follow the policy of never granting a movie above a 5.0 unless I intend on rewatching it for enjoyment, meaning I can show somebody Salo to show how bad it is without enjoying it or improving it’s deplorable rating. So how do I rate this? I don’t think I will ever watch it again. If I do, maybe I’d go up as high as a 5.5-6.0. Until then, I feel a 4.9 is apt. I can’t say I recommend it, BUT if you have a little more than an hour to kill, you can do way worse on NetFlix. If it sounds like I am not sold on this review or score, it’s because I am not, but that’s what I have for you.
Thank you, and please recommend some movies for me to review of any genre. Jamie has given me a few, so I will try tackling them. They don’t have to be horror, I prefer saving them for my October. They can be anything, as long as you have a true rhyme and reason for me to watch it. And no, don’t ask me to review Fast and the Furious.
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