Camera Obscura (2017)

Touches You

Absolutely brilliant

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Saw 'Camera Obscura', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued by the quite creative premise. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing it.Giving 'Camera Obscura' a fair chance with being interest and apprehension, it turned out to be far better than expected. Won't say that 'Camera Obscura' is a great film because it isn't and the potential, while not wasted, is not fully lived up to. Considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre and less and wasting potential, was expecting worse and was relieved that while wanting in a fair few areas it was actually one of my better recent low-budget viewings.Starting with the positives, generally the production values could have been much worse. There is a real sense of eeriness, foreboding and a decently stylish atmosphere, and it makes the most of the confined and at times effectively claustrophobic setting. The music is also suitably haunting and manages to not be too intrusive, likewise with the sound not being too obvious (a bugbear of mine with low-budget viewings recently).There is tension, suspense and genuine creepiness. The acting is better than average, particularly from the leads and the direction is assured in the first half while slackening later.Would have liked however more tension and suspense in the second half particularly and for some of the scares that become more prominent in the second half to be more creative and less trying-too-hard to the point of cheesiness, particularly when it becomes more prominent in the action. The dialogue is cheesy and awkward generally. Found that the story could have been executed better too. Too many parts are uneventful, the narrative structure is not always coherent and it can feel padded, not to mention an ending that perplexes in its anti-climactic and muddled convolution. The mystery and psychological elements needed more focus, the latter was underexplored and muddled somewhat at times. There are exceptions to the better than expected production values, the effects are shoddy and the editing could have been tighter.Overall, better than expected but didn't blow me away. 5/10 Bethany Cox

It's such a pity that a good thriller with an original plot gets poor rating of less than 5 stars. I don't know what's really wrong with people who have rated this movie poorly and what's their expectation about horror/thriller movies. The movie is so original and I have never seen a movie with a plot similar to this movie. It's a bizarre story, with elements of gore, thrill, mystery, etc. which are necessary for a good horror/thriller movie. Acting is pretty good. Movie is really fast moving, kept us guessing what would happen next. Movie is excellently made without a dull moment. If you keep on criticising good movies like this, you have to make your own movies, so that you will never criticise movies any longer. It's enough to give 10 stars to this movie just for the original, clever plot itself.

Adjusting to a new life, a disturbed man receives a vintage camera as a present only to find the pictures he develops seem to predict the future with a series of accidental deaths, and when his fiancée appears in one of the pictures he tries to change history to ensure she stays alive.Overall, this was a decent if entirely forgettable affair. One of the few enjoyable elements to this one is the fact that there's quite a decent mystery angle employed here with how this one plays out the camera's purpose. Since it's acquired in a manner that doesn't necessarily offer the most intensive knowledge of the situation, the eventual discovery of its history and how it was tied to the past atrocities has a really intriguing and occasionally chilling method to be featured here. As this becomes a bit more chilling with the connection of the incidents in the photographs and his race to prevent them from happening, it does have a somewhat decent storyline at play here. The other rather enjoyable aspect of this one comes from the way the film builds up its series of accidents as there's a lot to like with these scenes. Starting off innocently with the coincidences including the death at the playground he walked by to the construction site accident, it soon gives way to slightly more chilling scenes including the incident at the public swimming pool or his heroic attempts at the apartment as being a somewhat entertaining series of action scenes to give this some life. That it changes over in the later half to his attempts at saving her drive this into some rather shocking and brutal scenes that generate some solid gore and action scenes in the final half. These here manage to hold this up over its many flaws. Much of the film's problems stem from the central issue associated with films of this type of storyline in that it's entirely based on the obliviousness of characters to recognize the central danger. As we know from the beginning how dangerous the camera really is, the fact that nobody else recognizes this makes the film more of an exercise in frustration than terror as we spend more time trying to ensure they get rid of the cursed object than keep it around. Once it becomes obvious that the special pictures are coming true, the need to hide its powers becomes less and less obvious which basically renders the film far more a suspenseless slough through expected terrain rather than a terrifying ordeal. That manages to tie into another big problem here in the extremely dull pacing that pops up here. Not only is this film a product of not having an appropriate plot line to stretch out for as long as it does, but the fact that the majority of it's running time is spent devoted to an area that frustrates viewers leaves it cold. As these scenes go about running through these predetermined ideas that really deserve outside forces be brought onboard to help determine the cause of it all, these manage to really infuriate by going through so many scenarios that should've required something else come into play beforehand that film is troubling more often than not. The other big problem here is that a large portion of the accidents occur off- screen and reported later, making it hard to really get any real sense of fear out of these scenes. Overall, these are the issues that hold it down.Rated Unrated/: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity, a sex scene and drug use.

So this was rated pretty high on Amazon and on IMDb. A 6.7 isn't too shabby . So I rented it. With my bank account down pretty low, $5.99 I want to be well spent, I am meticulous reviewer of movies , because there is nothing worse than spending money on a crap film . First of all, it isn't terrible. IMDb is really bipolar when it comes to ratings. People hand out horrible ratings for films when they don't like them, unfortunately they're just not realistic. I think anything between a 1-5 should be considered B movie , bad production values , horrible acting , the works. This movie is not that. It's not B movie quality. The acting is good. The script isn't bad, except I do have my complaints. The script was crazy confusing in spots. The entire serial killer thing - I mean I figured that the camera must have belonged to the guy ( Im not a total idiot) what I can't figure is when that was ever introduced in the movie. I thought that I must have missed the auction scene where they said the camera belonged to the serial killer and they were auctioning off his stuff . . Because out of nowhere comes in this connection to the serial killer and the camera. Yet then there was the camera being from before WW2, ( yet the camera can date pictures ) and that didn't seem to go anywhere either. There was just some inconsistencies in the script. For someone not that bright , this might've seemed like a confusing mess. ( don't ever watch movies with someone not that bright ) the other thing is , the whole PTSD thing with the main protagonist... the movie took forever to get started or for anything mildly interesting to happen. They used this time for character development except this was extremely obtuse and almost purposely hidden , like we don't really find out exactly what this guys problem is till he is talking with his buddy at the bar. Which was well into the movie , and then we are supposed to believe that a photographer has PTSD ( a severe case) like as bad or worse than a combat vet. The movie started off not seeming very realistic to begin with. The characters were hard to believe ( I've never met any guys who speak like these guys also) but if you stick with it, it gets more interesting ... This isn't a horror movie ... this is a good first independent movie I would say in the thriller genre. This movie shows potential , and talent . I would applaud this film if I knew it was a first project for writer / director . I think that this movie reminds me of some other firsts - like for example Absentia, This movie has better production values , but on the same page is that film with interesting script and good acting , just not that great of a film. But good for independent standards and budget limitations. I look forward to the future with this director and writer. It's not a bad movie and I think some people will enjoy it more and some less. I thought it ended much better than it started and the later connections were cool. Overall I give it a 6, although it could easily be a 7, I just didn't get that into it , it didn't pull me in ..