Recovery (2016)

Too much of everything

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

'Recovery' drew me into seeing it, with a cool poster/cover, an intriguing and quite creative premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive. It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws are here present in those films, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'Recovery' is very weak, with a plethora of problems (fairly big ones too) and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There are however a couple of decent, even good, qualities in 'Recovery'.Lets start with the positives. The scenery is atmospheric and spooky, despite the rather direct to video schlocky way it's shot and edited, it was very clear that the film was made in a rush with no care or enthusiasm. Best thing about 'Recovery' is the opening, which was attention grabbing and kept me hooked. Which is why it is such a shame that 'Recovery' went downhill so drastically.Going on further to the negatives, the story does feel over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their irritating and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates. Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into it. The effects are ropy at best, the sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions) and it's best not mentioning the lumbering acting.Dialogue can be stilted and rambling while the pace goes to a standstill after the promising opening and drags on forever, never recovering. The second half is interminable. Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness and the lack of tension and suspense. A lot of 'Recovery' has underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. The ending makes the film finish on an incomplete and confused whimper.There is not enough threat here and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, while the psychological elements are unimaginative and are more odd than scary, completely failing to show the horror of the subject. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is pretty leaden, got the sense their heart was not in it, and the music doesn't really fit.Concluding, very weak. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Already the way the movie started, annoyed me a lot. I am fed up with social media bs, and when I realized this movie is going to include A LOT of it, like talking about it, using it, taking idiotic pictures etc. and rambling on how "my phone has so much dirt on me" (learn to behave like a decent human being, how about that?) not to mention making a big deal about someone not having Snapchat, I felt like watching this was a mistake. Also, movies with hipster-wannabe-but-still-generic-as-f*uck-teenagers, whose priority in life is pretty much their phone, tend to piss me off too. (Watched "It Follows" one time and got a massive headache..) So, wasn't expecting much. I was actually rooting for the bad guys, because they weren't that annoying. So, when the movie ended like it did, I was glad and decided to give an extra point. So 2/10 it is.

RECOVERY is a mindless indie horror film with zero redeeming qualities. This utter junk is about one of those 'find my phone' applications that you can get on a smartphone and sees it being used for nefarious purposes as it leads to a literal death house. This tame 'house of horrors' outing is a real dud and completely lifeless from beginning to end. The only surprise is that this was put out by Orion - the same Orion who released the wonderful ROBOCOP back in the day. For shame.

Cliché as hell (but that's not really the problem, the story and beginning was OK to be set for a good disposable title.)... nothing new, bad scripting people that know how to scrip don't make the victim characters knock-out the enemies and have them walking away after which is what literally happens 2-3 times... after you down someone who's trying to kill you, bash their head with whatever you can find so they don't get up later and freaking kill you!(or at least bind them) besides that the mom character and Ed's girlfriend are pretty useless in the movie very bad usage of them, Miles was the typical ''funny'' guy and it works for the most part but later when things get rough he turns to be very dumb and his sister ends up being bad-ass she clearly one-shots Ed but for some reason when the movie could have just ended and it would've been kind of an OK disposable movie but the guy who was supposedly dead shows up and ruins everything. And what about the dad and his gear ? he's clearly not a doctor to live in that ***thole.The good things i find in this movie are the humour with the new age of internet it's enjoyable,Eds visual and his room and the first half of the movie that does a good job keeping you entertained with corny jokes and typical teen things, but again it falls when hell breaks loose on your protagonists and you start to notice many script/screenplay flaws.Directors have to stop making crappy movies like this with many plot holes and flaws this isn't the beginning of slasher/terror films like F13th or Halloween where people accept it because they're classics , don't get me wrong here but i love bad slasher movies and this was OK for me but anyone who's not like me and has a critical nature will have wasted their time ... i don't know how many bad movies of this genre i watched that have the same flaws and plot-holes like it's copying corny aspects of classics from 30 years ago, you can still make movies like this but without having clear holes/flaws that could have easily been taken out with a review, ''You're next'' is a clear example of that.