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| Read our #review of #DreadCentral's #movie, #Screamers. |
Initially set as a 2016 release, Dread Central is finally releasing the latest horror movie to try the documentary style. Set at an independent upstart website, Gigalar.com, the film attempts to cash in on turning a low budget video project into another in a long line of recent releases that follow the same simplistic plot with actors that try their damnedest to stay realistic. As they succeed in connecting us with a crew of techie social media hounds, Screamers itself is all build up that never extrapolates on the antagonist that should have been the central focus of the story.
While Screamers isn't the worst genre entry we've seen lately, it's an exhausting 80 minutes that spends most of its runtime trying to create some new mythology that never gets the time or respect it deserves. When an eerie file is submitted to their new online hub, the main characters find themselves trying to solve the mystery of a missing girl that's been submitting vids to their site. Like most of these 'found footage' or doc style releases, things take too long to get going and the payoff isn't quite worth the journey getting there. We wait and wait just for things to end with no real resolve and not an ounce of explanation for the baddie's motives.
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| I hope we get a lot of #likes when we all #die. |
Reminiscent of so many other flicks that try to make due with barely any resources, sets are bare minimum and everything looks super indie. Most of Screamers is spent in an office where the people behind the website toil endlessly, hoping that one day their brain child will take off. Just like Screamers itself, the people onscreen are impatient and unwilling to wait. Audiences will feel the exact same way. This is a case of too little too late and the exact reason so many people fall out of love with this sub-genre.
The first seventy percent is spent as the two main guys battle over what is morally acceptable for their site. As millions of views come in to see the freakish video they've released, the drama unfolds into something that could have been way better than it is. The two leads have a spark that carries the majority of the movie. Yet, instead of using this to full effect, the creatives behind the project expect their blood thirsty horror viewers to sit around watching a soap opera play out instead of spending time on making something out of the truly terrifying force that lies in the background. And whenever the killer shows up, he is one hundred percent horrifying.
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| But I just wanted to #hangout. |
This is not a totally fruitless endeavor. There are some elements that will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat. And the new killer they've created will haunt your dreams. But, Screamers just needed way more of him and more backstory for what's happening on screen. You won't care about the half witted key players, their in-fighting, or the total disregard for amplifying the fear level here.
-CG
