I have way too many films on my to-watch list.
I've also managed to get really behind on my blog posts, I missed several in the last few weeks, and I want to get more organised with them. I wrote a list of posts I want to make, so I can actually get some finished, and making that list involved scrolling through my Netflix list to see what movies I could review. This was one I couldn't remember adding to my list, so I was obviously intrigued and clicked it.
I watched it instead of finishing my list.
Let me introduce it, and then we will get into my review.
My Review!
Bird Fitcher is the person in high school with a nickname, the kind people say loudly, so that you’ll definitely hear it. ‘Scarf Girl’, who always has a scarf around her neck to hide an old scar. Bird loves photography and antiques, so when her friend, Tyler, gives her an old polaroid camera that he found in a yard sale, she is overjoyed. She snaps a photo of him to commemorate the moment.
A few hours later, Tyler is dead. A shadow on the photo Bird took disappears, and moves to a newer photo, one of another friend. Hours later, and she is also dead.
Bird has a single picture, with all her friends in it, taken with the camera. With two people dead, and the shadow mysteriously having moved onto the picture with all her friends, Bird starts to grow worried. There is something about the camera, something about the deaths of her friends and the photos taken. The shadow looms over the group photo, as she realises that someone in the photo is next.
The two characters we see the most in this film are Bird and Connor. Connor is a guy Bird has a crush on, and they meet at a party, where Connor goes on to be featured in the group photo. After talking to Bird for a brief time, Connor starts to spend more time around her, teaming up with Bird to try and solve the mystery, and escape the danger, of being in the polaroid. Connor seems to be the one who believes Bird the most when she tries to tell her friends she is worried for them, and the photo, and together they work to try and figure out what is happening, why, and how to stop it.
I really liked Bird’s character. She is a very fleshed out main character, she has all the attributes of a real person – she is not just a backstory and the events of the film. Unfortunately, some of the other characters felt a little flat. Like they were just there for the sake of another character, rather than being real people in the situation. There was one character, I won’t name which, who I was certain from the start was going to die. They just seemed like the kind of person added into the film to be a friend who died. What do you know, they did! There was another character, though, Devin, who I thought was the next most real character after Bird. Unlike some of the others, he had very strong emotions that changed with what was happening, and he reacted to them physically. He might’ve been my favourite character, just for how real he came across.
Those in the pictures are linked to them, and that, in turn, links the shadow to them. I watch films with subtitles on, and the subtitles referred to the shadow as an ‘entity’. The entity shows up within the first few minutes of the film, so it is not a spoiler to talk about it. It makes an utterly terribly noise, a ragged wheezing, screeching scream. It is the kind of sound that is the last thing you ever hear. I won’t go into detail, but I quite liked the ‘rules’ of the entity. There are always rules for supernatural beings, like how werewolves can be killed with silver, or vampires with a wooden stake. The entity has rules I’ve never come across before, and I thought they fit the film perfectly.
When looking up this film, after watching it, I found a lot of negativity about it. Apparently, not many people liked it. While I can understand that it’s not an engrossing horror film, that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, it is not without tension. Sure, there are predictable moments, and it uses jump scares to add to the horror aspect, but it was still enjoyable. Some people have called it unoriginal, saying that the story has been done before. I can’t really add my own opinion to this, because I’ve never seen this kind of story anywhere else. This might be why I enjoyed it more than others, who have.
Yes, this film may not be what some people would class as a horror film, I would personally say it’s not that scary, but I don’t get scared watching horror films as it is. I would consider it more of a tense supernatural thriller. There is a lot of darkness, as with most horror films, and I am once again made to question – do lots of people use weak lamps as lighting in their homes, rather than lights that actually light up the room, or is that just a thing in horror films so there are shadows and dark corners?
Overall, I enjoyed this film. It is a quick film, just under an hour and a half, and while I found it more interesting than scary, it was entertaining. I think it might’ve been better with less jump scares and more gore, but it was still a good film. It certainly was not one I regret watching, it wasn’t a waste of my time (and believe me, I’ve watched several films before that were!) I would quite happily watch this again, perhaps with a friend, to introduce them to it.
And done!
I honestly don't know why I can't find any positive reviews for this film. There's not actually that many reviews of it, and they're all terrible. It wasn't that bad! I liked it!
That's all for now...
Bye!
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