Reel Nightmare (2017)
Starring Madeleine Heil, Garrett Morosky, Andres Mejia Vallejo
Directed by Armand Petri
When rifling through a list of “found-footage” styled films, the best course of action to take would most certainly be to rest assured that no matter how bad something could get…hey, at least it’s still horror regardless of how it may have been formatted. In the case of Armand Petri’s Reel Nightmare, while it may appear to have that first person POV allure to it, that’s actually one of its strong suits, because there really isn’t much more to rave on about. Let’s check our battery power and dive into this one while we’ve still got some juice to spare.
Centered around a group of paranormal investigators on the hunt for their next research spot, they map out a house set way back in the woods, and begin their preliminary surveying. Low and behold, one of our crew who just happens to be a tiny bit too inquisitive, manages to stir up the very pissed off spirit of a long-deceased witch who in turn, wrangles up the other two Gabor sisters (just kidding), and proceeds to torment and wreak havoc upon the band of ghostbusters. Now what is it about finding the tattered remains of a necronomicon, that it virtually begs to be read aloud? Have these people learned nothing over the years? Culling of the horror-herd, I suppose. In any event, after the wretched passages have been uttered, and the trio of black magic enchantresses come a’ callin, it’s up to the team of spectre-hunters to find a way to set these crones back on the shelf, once and for all – Jiminy Christmas, this sounds like a “Scooby-Doo” episode.
As far as the informative details about the plot are considered, you’ve bled me dry, and with good reason, as there unfortunately isn’t much more to lean on. As far as the visuals are concerned, with my main nemesis being the nausea-inducing tactic that’s buried this sub-genre to near non-salvageable depths – I’ve got to admit that it looked pretty damned good, with more stability and framed shots than even I could have anticipated. Now that I’ve handed out a participation award for the lookie-part of this pic, allow me to furiously kick the sound editor squarely in the yambag, as this entire film sounds like a bunch of people talking through liquid funnels – an overall atrocious performance on the audio level. The movie is deliberately paced in order to set up the backstory of the witches’ murder, but after 45-50 minutes of complete boredom, I’ll doubt that anyone would be itching to stick around to see if their existences (or what’s left of them) are vindicated. Cast-wise, no real stand-outs to write back home to the parents about – some portrayals were believable to an extent, while others looked as if they were clock-watching and couldn’t wait to wrap this thing up – kind of like the way I’m feeling about this particular review. So in closing I’ll offer this: if you’re in the mood to hear a lot of muffled dialogue and wallow in a story about some angry hags, then by all means jump on into Reel Nightmare, but there’s more than one way to torture yourself – you could continue to keep reading my writing.
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
