Six friends gather online for a seance during lockdown, but end up sending out the wrong invitation.
Pretty much the same set up as Unfriended, using the tried and failed idea of getting the characters to sit around and face each other ... hang on - the cheesiest device in horror just found its perfect scenario!
This is pretty good. With no opportunity for a wide shot of a car travelling on a country road, the director just gets down to business with the characters. The performances are fine, given there's so little back story or history to work with. The process of going through the looking glass is gradual, although the pace does pick up about half way through, and it all fits nicely into the run time.
Some decent frights, but nothing original, and the mythos is fuzzy as a couple of kills happen outside the circle of the seance. Also, the title suggests a particular plot device on the Zoom platform, but I don't think that was followed through. A big problem with jump scares is that they need good sound design, but in this format and these circumstances it's not available. Plus the only music is internal, which really limits the horror effect.
In the end, I was hoping for a reveal to cause a sharp intake of breath, like in Rec or Blair Witch, but no luck.
Still, it's an improvement on Unfriended, which also had a neat concept but was way too busy with onscreen information and stuffed with gurning performances. But that was five years ago, and we have yet to see the computer screen deliver the same intelligence as the cameras in Blair Witch.
Overall: One small step on horror's road to hell.
Pretty much the same set up as Unfriended, using the tried and failed idea of getting the characters to sit around and face each other ... hang on - the cheesiest device in horror just found its perfect scenario!
This is pretty good. With no opportunity for a wide shot of a car travelling on a country road, the director just gets down to business with the characters. The performances are fine, given there's so little back story or history to work with. The process of going through the looking glass is gradual, although the pace does pick up about half way through, and it all fits nicely into the run time.
Some decent frights, but nothing original, and the mythos is fuzzy as a couple of kills happen outside the circle of the seance. Also, the title suggests a particular plot device on the Zoom platform, but I don't think that was followed through. A big problem with jump scares is that they need good sound design, but in this format and these circumstances it's not available. Plus the only music is internal, which really limits the horror effect.
In the end, I was hoping for a reveal to cause a sharp intake of breath, like in Rec or Blair Witch, but no luck.
Still, it's an improvement on Unfriended, which also had a neat concept but was way too busy with onscreen information and stuffed with gurning performances. But that was five years ago, and we have yet to see the computer screen deliver the same intelligence as the cameras in Blair Witch.
Overall: One small step on horror's road to hell.