Specter (2014)

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

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

What did I just watch? This is not a movie its like watching someones home movie that has been capture at night on an old Hi8 Camcorder.Its dark, the visual effects are poor and annoying and the story (if there is one) does not make sense. Its full of what looks like archive footage and blurry images and is basically three people walking!! I cannot say anymore because I am so stunned that something this bad is actually being distributed and innocent people are being robbed of their hard earned money to rent it on iTunes or Amazon or buy it for about £10 at places like HMV. I would rather burn £10 than buy a film like this.

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.

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.