Specter (2014)

A Major Disappointment

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

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

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

There are some decent "found footage" films out there. Devil's Pass and Troll Hunter to name a couple. This film fell miles short of "decent". Here goes...Characters - not a single likable character in the movie. At no point did I care what happened to any of the characters. Heck, most of the time you can't tell what's happening to them anyways due to the dark and obscure filming. What little character development there is paints a picture of unemployed drug users who like to party in dark, trashy houses... hard to develop empathy there.Plot - Let's see, an earthquake is mentioned and there's some actual footage of a tsunami and landslides. Not really relevant to any scenes that follow in the remainder of the movie. Possibly the weird stuff you see here and there is alien-related and therefore responsible for the natural disasters? Who knows, nothing is explained. And no, I'm not a simpleton who needs a tidy ending or plot explanations by someone in the movie. But you can't just piece together a bunch of dark, obscure scenes and expect the viewer to use their imagination... there needs to be something more than blurted lines and shaky images to tie it all together.Pace - think Cloverfield. Main characters at a normal party (well, normal for white trash), unexpected chaos ensues and the characters pretty much run around until the abrupt ending. Keep in mind, they focused several times on the fact that the characters took drugs before the chaos began, so much of what you see could be hallucination and when they focus far too long on a character who is in a trance-like state, you aren't sure whether it's the drugs or the hinted-at alien activity (or whatever it was).Filming - atrocious. It's dark, there are too many long periods of just black screen, and the few glimpses we get of the weird stuff are simply that... brief glimpses of weird stuff. The glimpses explain absolutely nothing of what's actually happening.Look, I don't mind "found footage" movies. In fact, I kind of like them and I am pleased when I find a decent one. But add something to it, take a new angle, do something unique! And for crying out loud, the everyone-dies-end-it-abruptly-and-ambiguously ending has been done a zillion times.This movie, even free, isn't worth the time investment.CWB

Specter is what I like to call a last minute reminder that found footage films can be somewhat enjoyable and creative if the right filmmakers are behind the camera. There are so many directions that can come out of this type of filmmaking yet the majority of today's found footage film directors believes that making a typical haunted house or demonic possession film is the only way to go. In the case of Specter, there is a bold sense of filmmaking (the type of film that could've easily been a short in one of the "V/H/S" films) that delivers on its concept and mystery angle. Also it doesn't hurt that the film actually takes place in a real life storm disaster. The atmosphere because of this reality is its own character and adds to the tension of the situations explored in the film. So take that into consideration when talking about whether or not this found footage film should be tossed aside with the rest of the Paranormal Activity impostors. Every single scene involving a flash flood, trees tossing, boats crashing, etc. is all taking place in real time from nature's fury. The brilliance of this film comes with the mere fact that the story centers around the storm, but doesn't focus on it too much. What we have is your typical teenage crew doing illegal activities until we see them getting picked off one by one in the end by a supernatural force. Yes, it sounds like every other film out there, but as I stated, the brilliance comes with the real terror that surrounds them being a bonus. The acting is what you would typically find in this genre of films (no one watches a found footage science fiction horror to find Oscar worthy performances). The characters themselves worked just enough to get me through the experience however no one really stood out to me as someone to root for. The story itself like I said is your overly done unknown supernatural force killing off a young adult crowd, but the execution this time around is the eye catcher. Yes I've praised the filmmaking boldness of the massive natural disaster already, but beyond that, the wide scaled destruction of the story is also done well. The film emphasizes on the fact that this force of destruction has killed off possibly the entire county of people during the storm. There are great shots of emptiness as well as the flaming remains of people scattered around. There is definitely some haunting imagery in the film and it genuinely adds to the film's tone instead of desperately calling for shock value (for the most part). Surprisingly, I found myself a little on edge (in a good way) in the last few minutes of the film where we find our cameraman searching for his friend through all of the chaos happening. It's a chilling and downright nerve wrecking experience as the audio and atmosphere took me in for a little joy ride through a nightmarish situation. I'll say in the end, "Specter" is a found footage film that puts effort in making an entertaining and haunting experience feel as real as the setting that film surrounds itself in. Whether you've given up on the genre of not, I'd still recommend at least checking it out as an interesting film project to say the least. It won't recover my faith for the current state of films in this overcrowding library of generic cheap horror films, but it will encourage me to keep an eye out for talented filmmakers looking to try something bold and unique.

Three film students travel to Maryland to make a student film about a local urban legend... The Blair Witch. The three went into the woods on a two day hike to find the Blair Witch, and never came back. One year later, the students' film and video was found in the woods. The footage was compiled and made into a movie. Specter.No. Kidding. Despite the remarkable similarities, this is NOT "The Blair Witch Project". Well, it's what Blair Witch would have been if it was set in Santa Cruz instead of Maryland. I don't want to go into the parallels so I don't have any spoilers, but, I mean, come on guys, couldn't you at least have written a new ending? It's a shame this film relies so heavily on clichés lifted straight from Blair Witch, because it actually shows some promise otherwise. Anyone who has never seen Blair Witch will very likely find this as suspenseful as the filmmaker likely intends, as well as creepy in all the right places. Plus it's paced pretty well. But substituting nauseating first-person camera-work—here supplemented by occasional visual "technical difficulties", noise, and distortion making it even harder to watch—and barely-unexplained visual creepiness for plot development, originality, and genuine depth was already played out long before this crew ever climbed Tree 9, climbed down into the Hell Hole, or burned rubber up Empire Grade.They do bring a small sprinkling of new ideas to the formula—correcting Lost Boys' total breach of realism by depicting two or more people from Santa Cruz in one place together without drugs being ingested—and shows fleeting snatches of effective (if never adequately explained) visual frights, rather than BWP's audio-only presentation of the things that go bump in the dark woods.And, really, in this case the first-person perspective (so familiar at this point that they don't even bother to have a character say "Will you turn that damn camera off??" or "Always film! We must film everything!!", because at this point the audience takes it as read) actually help remove some of the fear, because seeing everything through the camera lens confirms the reality of things for the viewer that the characters cannot be sure aren't hallucinations. The conceit confirms the objective existence of what is show, so the filmmakers can't play games with the audience's perceptions, show things from the perspective of a hallucinating character, etc.But, you know, I'm reluctant to give this film a low rating, because until it ended with the solidly disappointing dual thuds of both an overly familiar cliché of a conclusion and the unsatisfying failure to provide any explanation for what has been seen, I actually did enjoy it, despite the overwhelming sense of familiarity that hung over the whole project. The characters, though not well developed, were sort of likable; I've hung out with this class of listless obliterati myself at times, and enjoyed it thoroughly. So it rang true on that level. Also, after taking a little while to get going, the pacing is actually pretty good, tension builds and is maintained well, although I would suggest to the filmmakers that some development, in terms of revealing what's actually happening rather than just throwing more and more random creepy things in front of the camera for no apparent reason, might have actually made it more tense and effective.If this crew makes another horror feature, I'll watch it. But they need to get it right next time, keep the fun & scares but improve the storytelling and avoid filmmaking clichés, or I doubt I'd be interested to give them any more chances.

Found footage indie film about a town, Midground, which is about to be beset by a tsunami. A group of young people are messing around with drugs during and after the disaster, and, as strange events start happening, they begin to question what's real and what isn't. Everything seems to be filmed on phones, so it may cause a little motion sickness.The use of real disaster footage is interspersed and helps to bring some realism to the beginning of the story.The acting isn't bad, and as with most found footage movies, the minimal lighting is used to a creepy effect.