Graduation Day (2015) User Reviews

4.5 Stars

[Foutainoflife · 5/10 · 11 March 2019]

A group of friends are documenting their senior year of high school and when a tragedy strikes, they do some stupid teenage stuff that comes back haunt them after graduation day.

This is a low budget, found footage movie that has a lot of differences but feels a lot like "I Know What You Did Last Summer." The actors seem young and inexperienced but I thought some of the may have shown some future potential.

Giving that it is found footage format, it is filmed fairly well. The story has a twist that holds out for almost the entire time but when it reveals itself, I gotta say that I liked it. My honest opinion is that it is what saves the film and makes it worthwhile.

My takeaway is that it isn't absolutely awful and it is one of the better low budget films but it does leave something to be desired.

Not bad

[wolfqueen2020 · 6/10 · 20 November 2022]

I actually enjoyed this even though the beginning could've had way less sexual conversation, boobs, and male rear end. The dialogue could've used some help and in some parts the acting was quite bland but for the most part the story had me engaged. I guessed at how the ending would go and still got something else. I don't feel like real teenagers would act like these characters did, maybe more in a college setting and some of the things the characters did weren't logical, like just assuming someone is dead without checking. I guess this was to play on their immaturity, idk. Either way I enjoyed the latter half when the real story started going. My only confusion was the very very last scene in the credits when the girl is putting the camera in the vent. Someone walks through the door who looks very suspiciously like our main character which would blow the entire ending considering that would mean he knew about it all. But idk. Anyway it's decent.

Great twist

[shawndonovan-29032 · 8/10 · 25 April 2018]

It was a great twist even though I knew it was coming towards the end. I just wish he didn't die at the end.Great found footage film!

Awesome Movie

[watsonkingjohn · 3 January 2016]

Certain people on the reviews are reading way to much into the movie a more of a critic rather than watching it as if they are just an average person going to the movies and seeing it... Why does it matter to know that back in 2013 that they should have rather been using their phones to record these things rather than a camera? who the hell cares just enjoy the movie i for one thought it was good ESPECIALLY the ending! (Spoiler alert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Them playing a joke as to throwing the girl off the cliff and then playing a big ass prank on the guy but then at the end he kills himself because of him not knowing that it was all a prank. that was a genius! How could you not think this was good. Stop thinking so hard about it being similar to other movie or them using video cameras rather than their phone and just enjoy it.

Absolutely no positives to be found here

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 20 March 2016]

Attempting to monitor their graduating class, a group of teens accidentally kill a fellow student and decide to hide the body in order to carry on with their lives only for someone to approach them about revealing the crime and forcing them to stop the blackmailer.

This is one of the most putrid and worthless barely-horror efforts around. There's an abundance of flaws here that on it's own are incredibly detrimental on their own but all cobbled together just simply destroying this one, beginning with the people involved in the whole affair. This is yet another of an endless series of films involving friends who are the prototypical rich, self-centered arrogant jerks who view everything else as expendable so long as nothing interferes in their pursuit of partying and having a good time, which makes the film so difficult to get into because it pegs them as those kinds of people from the very start and doesn't expend any pretenses about them as anything otherwise which really makes them so hard to care for that this one starts off being so incredibly boring that even with the characters being enjoyable the pace is so stilted there's little to like here anyway. It takes well over twenty minutes before the initial accident to occur that starts them on their main path here that there's a decided lack of action for quite a while into this one that it really stumbles over the first half. Since it's all focused on hammering home those qualities for the group with their school antics and the party, this is just insanely boring with nothing interesting going on for an extended period of time so that it has to simply rush through the final hour of time since this barely runs over an hour. That's another big flaw here for this one, where it just doesn't last long enough to really allow the full depth of it's story to be expanded upon when it doesn't have the time to do this. That leaves this one with such a little chance of actually doing anything that there's little opportunity to bulk that up with utterly bland efforts to build this up. There's also the rather detrimental factor here that involves this one being a found-footage effort in that there's so many of the same utterly horrendous and problematic flaws found in these kinds of efforts coming back up again, with the scattering focus keeping the action next-to-impossible to make out when it should've been enhancing the scenes instead, the rattling zooms and shaking visuals are headache-inducing rather than complimentary to what's happening and the constant need to keep filming in spite of their own personal safety as several of these scenes are shot from the perspective of someone who really shouldn't be videotaping the sequence which all comes together to be quite distracting in the long run. On top of all these other problems, the ending here does come off as even worse here for what it sets-up against the rest of the film,and completely undermines everything that came before. Even the plot makes no sense as for why this particular entity carries out the revenge as it does as the fact that the twist revealed here makes for a rather puzzling effort with barely anything worthwhile about what happened beforehand making sense with the way this ends on. Along with the fact that this one rips off so many other films that it doesn't offer up anything original on it's own merits, all of these issues make up detrimental flaws on their own but all together make for a truly worthless effort.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Brief Nudity, Mild Violence and drug use.

Found Footage

[nammage · 25 November 2015]

Note: i am writing this review as i watch it for the first time.

Honestly, I'm getting tired of these "found footage" films especially when they open it up like any old horror film by showing the perpetual ending at the beginning and then cutting to the beginning. Another problem: the video quality is good. Granted it takes place in 2013 but all the "found footage" films I've seen usually had poor quality due to damage, or what not to the camera. There's more than one camera used in this and apparently they are found in immaculate condition. Doesn't say much for the level of horror supposedly included in the film, does it? Also, they're using hand-held cameras? Even in 2013 people mainly just used their phones -- I know I did.

The beginning plays like any recent horror film in concern to high schoolers: teens joking around, hanging around and apparently filming everything in the process. Oh, and constant closeups of the female anatomy, including a short insignificant (with some slow motion) montage of such.

Then we cut to a party. Slow motion, snap shots, music over any other sound. The beginning, the very beginning, showed a kid in distress. If we're watching the footage, why would it be edited to be a film? Separating the fact it is a film. Meaning, it plays out as a film but it's found footage that also plays out like a film. Get it?

More female anatomy shown at the party (why I am not saying "nudity" is because they're all wearing clothes). So, they go outside, get half undressed and start jumping off a cliff into the ocean and one girl doesn't want to jump so they force her to jump and yes! something bad happens to her and it turns into another horror film called "I Know What You Did Last Summer". So unoriginal! Oh, and the killer looks like the guy from the first Scream movie.

Another stupid scene is the fact one of the guy's with a camera apparently videotapes himself while he's asleep. Who does that? While having sex, I get but while you're just sleeping? Come on!

Who videotapes every second of their life? Also, if they got a crime on tape, as they did, wouldn't they erase that? Apparently not in this movie. I mean, they talk about what they did throughout them filming themselves. They're either the stupidest people in the world or the filmmakers think we are.

I didn't care about any of the characters. They committed a horrible crime, and got away with it. So...them all dying (non-horrifically) was okay with me. I didn't care about any of them. I was hoping they all died (not saying they did since I'm reviewing this as I watch it but the beginning kind of gives that away).

The quality of the film was good, too good for this type of film. The acting (except from the victim's brother) was good, for the most part. The film itself was uneventful. I'm more into this review than the movie. That's how boring the movie is.

Now, to the ending: I'm just going to say that you're going to have to see it for yourself. It's so high school. So adolescent. While getting to it there are many problems (as I've listed above) getting to the ending, the ending does explain some (not all) the inconsistencies, and the plot stealing, and what the true horror of the film is, yet then again...

Overall: 4/10.