Invoked (UK DVD)

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Invoked UK DVD SleeveStarring Patrick Murphy, Ciara Rose Burke, Lynn Larkin, Craig Grainger

Directed by Humberto Rosa and Thairon Mendes

Distributed by Left Films


Hey, you! Wanna make a film?

Got some friends, a bit of money and a camera? Can’t afford a proper lighting rig, a few tripods or a dolly?

Well, don’t fret! Just make a found footage horror flick! You don’t even need much of a script!

Better yet… just don’t.

The ‘found footage’ style, when done properly, can undoubtedly be very effective in generating tension, genuine fear and some uniquely effective shocks. When paired with a good story, a few twists, turns and surprises, it can be the vehicle for some pretty impressive fright flicks – see the likes of Evidence, Home Movie, Atrocious, [REC], The Bay, and even James Moran’s Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story (available on iTunes right now) for some decent examples.

It isn’t the format itself that gives this kind of film a bad reputation. It’s the constant influx of utter crap like Invoked.

It would be a waste of time to go any deeper than to say that the only thing that differentiates Invoked from all of the other woefully uninspired Paranormal Haunting of…, Tape 39485849, Haunting of Fahlablavely Manor 4, blah blah blah ghost flicks is the fact that it’s set in Ireland.

Awesome.

A bunch of teens head off to drink, smoke pot and generally lark about in an old abandoned hostel in County Sligo. There, they of course decide that it would be a great idea to try to communicate with a legendary restless spirit via home-made Ouija board, and get more than they bargained for.

And your eardrums also get more than THEY bargained for, as an incessant torrent of running, screaming and yelling begins while the camera – always, of course, recording every solitary minute with no rhyme or reason – shakes around all over the place… only to become still moments before the inevitable jump scare as a ghostly figure flies at the screen.

Invoked is bereft of anything that makes a good horror film. No intrigue, no story worth mentioning and absolutely no tension. Even the jump scares miss their beats and fall flat on their arse through lazy, cynical execution. There’s no feeling of love, no sense of care; just contempt for not only the audience, but the genre itself.

A solitary good idea does actually come up during the film; yet, it’s nothing that we haven’t seen before in countless other haunted house movies. Invoked is a fetid, stagnant pool where creativity has lain, bound and chained, in the depths, rotting into the murky waters.

And taking a swig from those waters would probably leave a more pleasant taste in your mouth than choosing to waste valuable minutes of your life with this film.

Invoked stands alongside The Tapes and The Inside as amongst the worst entries in the found footage sphere to come sliding out of the UK and Ireland, like moist turds from some puckered, rancid anus.

There’s a half-star awarded for actually picking up a camera and making the effort to create a film, but four and a half stars left unchecked for not taking a step back and realising that adding to a mountain of shit serves no purpose but to add to a mountain of shit.

And we’re sick of smelling it. There is no compelling reason for this film to exist.

Left Films brings Invoked to UK DVD with the trailer and a couple of short films as extras. The first, City of Hate is a competently made, but rather drab, social realist drama set in inner-city Ireland. The second, O Quadro (The Picture), is a pretty darned good little chiller – shot in Portuguese language in Rio de Janeiro – that sports an intriguing premise and a neat twist.

Special Features:

  • Trailers
  • Short Films — City of Hate and O Quadro
  • Film
  • Special Features
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User Rating 2.8 (10 votes)
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