Synopsis: Expectant mother Liz wakes to find her nearly-to-term pregnancy has disappeared overnight. When doctors find no medical explanation for the loss, police treat Liz and her husband Rick as prime suspects in what has now become a missing child case. Only Rick and Liz’s brother Evan trust her version of events.
As word spreads, the young couple is subjected to the unwanted attention of the police and prying neighbors. Evan feels for his sister and, as a film student, begins documenting her story, starting with a vacation to the mountains to relieve some of her grief.
But as Evan continues documenting their vacation, unusual patterns arise, Evan and Rick are horrified when Liz’s condition visibly declines and when the trip spins out of control they realize that whatever happened with Liz and her baby isn’t over. None of them are safe.
Rating: Not-Rated
Run Time: 90 Minutes
Director: Mimmy Loweree
Dvd Extra’s: Commentary, Making of Featurette, Trailer.
Nudity Factor: None.
Of Note: Found footage / handy cam style filmmaking
Recommendations:
Trailers:
I picked this up, not thinking or knowing it was a handy cam/shaky cam/found footage film type movie. I really thought we were past that being a thing by 2013. So right from the beginning I didn’t like the way the film was made. The story follows a woman that was pregnant but without explanation the baby is gone. Seven months in and the baby just disappears. Her husband and brother think the best way to recover from this is to go to a remote location. The brother wants to film and document what is going on, but he ends up documenting more than he expected. So outside of this being a shaky cam film, the story really never gets to a point. I had a story that just leaves more unexplained than explained. At least with the Paranormal movies, they added some dialog after the movie played that wrapped up things. I was also bothered by how the camera without explanation just came on. It would film a weird scene and then turn off. Most of the scenes are shadowy, dark, out of focus, or worse. I get that the shaky cam style of filmmaking can add an element of suspense, and in a few films it pulled it off. In many other films, this just translates into a low budget, low quality movie that get old in a hurry. Another way to put it, is it seems like a lazy way to film things. You don’t have to setup a good scene, as you are covering it up without off focus shots or shots that are off camera. This film is an example of all of those things but even worse than most.
Overall, this film had few qualities that I like. Actually, maybe the only one is the work that Erin Way does. She does a pretty good job. The dialog is week and at times not even entertaining. The use of a terrible filming style does not help. The story is weak and does not have a pay off. It really has everything that I don’t like in a film. A decent performance by one actress is not enough to carry this film through all the other areas this film fails. Unless you are a fan of shaky/handy cam films that has a few minor horror elements, then I would take a full skip on this movie.