This sounds like it has potential, so I am cautiously optimistic. Here’s the IMDB summary. “A detective hunts down a killer using video footage shot by the victims of a massacre at an abandoned gas station.”
This takes place in Kidwell, Nevada in July of 2012. We see an overhead shot, lots of smoke, looks like an explosion occured. Police, Firefighters, EMT’s, Coroners, and others are there. One guy is holding up an arm, with no body. I can’t explain everything I am seeing, but this looks like a fucking massacre went down. “In law enforcement circles, forensic video evidence is known the Unblinking Eye. This eye assists in solving thousands of cases each year.” Uhm, thanks for that info.
There is a press conference, and there’s Radha Mitchell. I actually really like her quite a bit. She was the blond mom in Man on Fire, the lead in Silent Hill, and also in Pitch Black. She’s awesome. There’s a guy uploading the video evidence to the server, and I thought it was Piper’s brother Cal from Orange is the New Black. I am apparently wrong. I am confused. Nope, it’s definitely not him. Sorry, I got excited momentarily, sexually. Hey, we got us a token black guy. Yay. He best not die. What the fuck is this shit? It’s like some CSI shit. Oh, time to watch the video.
So we have 2 chicks, one is pretty damn sexy. Some douche guy playing guitar. And a surprise party. Oh yay. Hot chick is the filmer, her name is Rachel. Other girl, who is also good looking is named Leanne. So they fast forward, and they are at a play and she gets a standing O. Then douche bag guitar guy interrupts her applause by coming down the aisle singing her and then proposes. The audience is saying “Say yes” and she turns him down. For what? We don’t know. She is now talking on video “to him” about not being ready for marriage but still wants him to go on some trip. He shows up at the shuttle and he is pissed. He flips off Rachel. Bitches making light of him. I want him to rape both of them, or kill them, or both. Don’t poke the fucking broken-hearted bear, you stupid bitches. I already hate both lead chicks. And I don’t like him. I need a character to like. Boyfriend’s name is Tyler. Some hot Russian chick just got on this shuttle bus. She is cute. So new favorite character by default. Now Steven gets on, and he wants to be an apprentice magician. Hahaha, Dale Dickey is in this as well. She was the prostitute on My Name is Earl. I like her a lot, so new favorite character, followed by Russian. Dale’s character’s name Katrina and Russian is Vicki. Names are important. Katrina has a bag full of bundled cash. Nice. They are on their way to Vegas.
Hahaha, Katrina gets pissed off with Rachel for annoying the driver. She then gets in her face, and then shit starts happening, but we don’t know what. Oh, the rolled and flipped. Cell phones don’t work, and they are on a desolate road. The driver ran over some barbed wire thanks to being distracted by dumbass Rachel. The bus driver is trying to get them to walk to a gas station. Vicki is insistent on going back on the bus to get the birthday gift for her son. Rachel won’t shut the fuck up. Why must the pretty ones so obnoxious? Steven apparently ran away from home. We are fast approaching the one-third mark, and currently, am not digging this. That seems common for me with movies. It’s hard for me to get engaged quick. The ones that do, tend to be memorable.
They approach this potentially abandoned place, but the camera work is so awesome, I can’t tell what it is. Fuck you poorly done found footage fuckery. I think this was a trucking company and office, at least that’s what I am gathering. Vicki is bleeding. The driver mocks Rachel with Vicki’s video camera, good for him. The driver’s name is Ben. Rachel is exploring, hears a noise, and Steven bursts through a door running and bleeding like crazy. They just saw a figure in the shadows running. OK. And back to the detectives. The cops have a lead on Katrina’s husband or bf named Gerald. This would be better without the detectives as of this moment. The next day, Ben is at the fuse box, and is getting the power on, or is he? I knew he looked familiar. He played Joe Adams in the film Ray. He became Ray’s like adviser halfway through. Some bitch just got blowtorched. I will assume Rachel. If she’s not going to get naked, then I am good with this. Yup, she got burned, probably to death. She is still crying and screaming. What an awful death. OK, it was a welder’s torch. This one male investigator is super smart. Radha is a gung ho bitch. Sigh. Wait, we’re in a room with panicking people. There’s douchebag, Leanne, Vicki, Ben, Katrina just entered, and somebody is operating the camera. Who got torched then? What the fuck chicanery is this? Rachel is operating the camera.
Ben says it’s time to be a hero, and that he’s been told that he looks like Tom Cruise. I like Ben the most. He’s black, so he’s probably gonna die very soon. Leanne and Douche saw the guy, and now they are looking, in the dark. We have like the negative imaging going on, thanks to low lit environment. I think it’s Ben and Rachel. You can’t really see shit. She won’t shut the fuck up and he wants to be stealthy. Kill her, you will have a better chance. She is the type of person that will get you murdered due to heavy breathing, whining, screaming, and general lack of common sense. They go back to the bus to get Ben’s tools. This film is not very watchable. The camera work is soooo bad. He finds his flare gun. They then hear something break outside. Ben is going to check on it. “You wanna fuck with me?” That was Ben as he gets out. 3 seconds later, a bloody Ben is pressed against the door. The killer is trying to flame his way inside. Why not just set the bus on fire and trap her in it? I say this logically and as a viewer. She makes it back. Vicki just had to bitchslap a hysterical Rachel. Awesome. Katrina comes barging in. Douche and Leanne went looking for her bitch ass. Oh, the secret gift for Vicki’s son was the video camera. She didn’t give it to her son, I don’t know why. She is all crying, and Rachel doesn’t console her. Katrina says “He’s here.” What is he, Bray Wyatt? Sure enough, he is like shooting flares at the girls. I think Katrina got nailed. Thank you stellar camera work. Katrina is still with the girls. This movie is not going to have a great review no matter how good the last act is. The girls found Leanne, but no sign of Douche. Please, I hope this film killed off all the guys in this film minus the killer. Seriously, 4 obnoxious women, and at best a douche, but I think he is gone.
Katrina is saying creepy shit to the camera and then bounces from the building because she just figures that they are fucked. Hahahaha, they randomly spot the flare gun, so now it’s time to go outside at night and expose themselves. Nooooo, don’t send Vicki out. Wait, let me check if there is any nudity. Nope. OK, Vicki is now expendable. As is everybody in this film. Vicki goes out alone, and the killer bashes her face in and then cooks her and sets her ablaze, and now he’s coming. This is worse than See No Evil 2. Oh man, 35+ minutes remaining with potentially just Rachel and Leanne, unless of course, Douche is alive. I assume he has to be in order to drag this out as long as they did. Scared, whimpering girls for the past minute plus. My level of giving a fuck is trickling. SHIT!!! Ben just showed up, he’s still alive. To quote Mariah Carey “And then a hero comes along”.
Katrina made a video and she is bitching at the cops and says how she wants to be buried with Gerald. She said when he came back from Iraq, he wasn’t the same mentally, and then he had cancer. The SWAT team is now at Gerald’s door as they keep switching scenes frantically. Katrina then breaks a mirror and says see you soon baby as she holds the shard up to her throat. But then we see her from the Killer’s perspective, he has the phone. She says “It’s you” and he kills her. Like he is ripping like organs out of her body. Oh, and find out that Gerald has been dead for a week. He killed himself. He left a letter for Katrina to take the money and go to Vegas. In blood, the killer wrote in blood “Fear me as you fear God”. I am hoping this is Ben or Steven’s doing. Oh, now they are researching Ben’s records. Getting somewhere now hopefully.
OK, the girls are with Ben. They find the bloody body of Katrina, and Ben is not interested in wasting time. He wants to do work, these dumb skanks. They are outside, and the girls make a run into some garage it appears. Ben barricades the door. And then he says that the phone is that way, and then disappears. Then there is screaming, and nothing. Still, 25+ minutes to go. Fucking hell. Suddenly a body falls through a door, and it appears to be Ben. I don’t know anymore what the fuck is happening. Can we just make a good horror movie, rated R, with good camera and audio, no bullshit jump scares, and do a good fucking job? Rachel turns on the power and is assaulted by the killer and his torch. I will give them credit for originality with the blowtorch idea. Not easy to wield. I’m gonna eat some eggs and try not to get sick. I’d rather be sick than sit through this movie again. Rachel is getting pounded on. I like this part at least. And now he fries her bitch ass. OK, so I think that was Rachel from before when I was confused…I think.
Now we are seeing the footage from Steven’s phone. Glad they remembered him. Leanne and douche are arguing. Douche storms out. The fat guy who I thought was Cal fucked up the video. The memory card is missing or some shit. How convenient. So now the footage is leaked onto the internet thanks to fuckhead uploading them to the server. Obviously that was going to play a role. Radha is getting called into the office by her supervisor. Ha Ha. Why doesn’t anybody ever accuse V8 of having a monopoly? This smart guy is still thinking. Maybe it’s him. Just tossing out dumb ideas at the moment, he’s been able to see all of these things all along. Like, he is so full of himself and has been setting up these clues and hints all along. I mean, that would work for me I suppose. The black cop came in, saying Ben isn’t really Ben. He did time for attempted grand larceny. Maybe it was Ben all along, dun dun dunnnnn.
MAJOR SPOILERS UPCOMING (scroll down til you see END SPOILERS)
The smart detective is in the interrogation room with somebody, I assume Leanne. Douche lived, he’s in the hospital. Apparently, smart detective, Reese is his name, his daughter got kidnapped at a mall. 6 months later, they found the body behind a truck stop. He’s talking to her very creepily. About serial killers. Please, somehow make this ending adequate. This Reese is saying how she saw certain things. How does he know? She saw no scars or tattoos. He is almost agitated that she doesn’t remember seeing anything. According to her, Steven was choking and he seems shocked that Steven was still alive. It’s gotta be Reese, he’s pissed that he left Steven alive.
OK, Steven is dead. Damnit. I was really hoping it was Reese. Now he is looking to see what Steven was choking on. It’s a memory card. This is just silly. Time for the exciting conclusion. Oh, sweet, somebody was drinking a NOS energy drink. The guy is removing his mask. And the killer is…….Douchebag Tyler. Gay. Reese is seeing how the time code doesn’t break up. These tapes were edited. And the killer is Leanne and Rachel?
They then showed the Usual Suspects/Saw montage to show how it all went down. Hmmmmm, that was borderline brilliantly done. I can’t believe they pulled that off. They just Kayser Soze’d our collective bitch asses.
END SPOILERS
So the film is over, and I sit here, and I think, what the hell just happened? Did a film that I just loathed for 95% of its duration just get redeemed? I’m amazed and confused. I kinda have to give this film the slow clap of appreciation. Yeah, I probably will watch this again. Damnit, I’m such a hypocrite. Did that ending just turn a film I was on the verge of giving like a 3. something to a 5. something? That just doesn’t happen to me. I’m usually good with these things. Bravo.I’m giving it a 5.5. The ending did what an ending is supposed to do. It tied up every loose end that I can think of. Sure there are probably messages on IMDB pointing out various flaws, BUT all in all, that was well crafted. If the camera work had been better, this would be up another point or 2. The camera work was a major turn off for me.
And yes, on IMDB, people are bringing up huge plot holes, and they are right to an extent. The biggest one being how fast, certain things happened. But, it’s a horror film, and some days I am super nitpicky, but right now, I am happy, so I am giving it a pass. M Night sat there and said “DAMN”.
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