sxtape (2013) Directed by Bernard Rose

Seems that people nowadays are simply going to hate on every new found footage movie that comes out (and maybe rightfully so), since the genre is milked to dead already and every movie is basically doing the exact same things, over and over again. So is this movie different? Is it doing anything new or surprising? Absolutely not but compared to most other genre movies, it also really remains far from the worst one.

Bernard Rose, director of the cult classic "Candyman", must have thought to himself; what can I do to become popular and known again? I know! I'm going to shoot and direct a found footage movie, since those movies are so extremely popular! Well, he chose poorly. The only reason why these type of movies are 'popular' is because they are cheap and fast to make and always make their money back and then some. It's not like audiences watch these movie because they love them but usually because they get tricked into seeing them, by an appealing looking cover, that very often has absolutely nothing to do with the movie and some great and exciting, promising, sounding titles, that again, sometimes have absolutely nothing to do with the actual movie. That's all really the case with this movie as well

Thing about basically every found footage movie is that you know that the first half is going to be nothing but build up. Absolutely nothing is ever shown in the first half of these type of movies and once you know and realize this, the movies often can become a real struggle to watch. Luckily. thing I can say about this movie is that it isn't being too bad with this. Sure, not a lot is happening but at the same time, it also at least isn't forcefully trying to create mystery and suspense.

Some people will probably be bothered by the fact that all that the two main characters do in the first half of the movie is having sex with each other on camera. I'll admit, it gets pretty annoying to watch after a while and it's quite ridicules how they want to have sex constantly, at any time, at any place but that's just what young people in love do of course (not that I would know anything about that). Again, the first half and build up of the movie is not as bad or annoying as these type of movies normally often can get to watch. It's actually a fairly well paced movie, that's pleasant to watch, even when not an awful lot is happening in the story.

So when and if does the horror kick in, you may wonder? Well, when they enter an old, abandoned, hospital of course! Yes, it's one of those type of movies unfortunately, that's hardly anything new or surprising to watch, when it comes down to its horror. It's especially ridicules that they decide to reenter the building, only moments after some strange things happened to them. It's all the more ridicules that the main male character constantly feels to need to keep on filming everything, even when his life is clearly in danger.

Another thing that always bothers me about these found footage movies is that they always pretend to be some very subtle and realistic ones but once the horror or supernatural elements kick in, all of that realism and subtlety is suddenly gone! The contrast between the first half and second half of this movie is far too great. Lots of people (myself included) always give movies such as "The Blair Witch Project" a hard time for not really ever showing anything but I'm beginning to think that this actually maybe wasn't such a bad thing after all. Less can definitely be more for these type of movies sometimes, which this movie however doesn't always realizes.

Biggest compliment I can give this movie is that it's far from the worst genre movie that I have ever seen but other than that, I still really can't recommend this movie to anyone as well though.

5/10

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