It’s a variety of plots involving people that want to be seen on camera getting offed on camera. How I wish it was as fun as it sounds…
THE HAUNTING AT JACK THE RIPPER’S HOUSE (2025)
This one is about capturing live footage of ghosts, but it’s mostly not in first person POV. The focus switches to that only occasionally.
There is so much filler here that they should have just made it like 70 minutes long instead of 85 minutes long to tighten the pacing.
The opening has a straight couple exploring a house and then getting dragged away and killed, with no obvious sign of who or what did it. That pretty much describes the whole film.
We then meet a group of YouTube ghost hunters. Viewers think they are fakes, so they want to prove they aren’t.
We then get a short sequence of them exploring a haunted abbey that shows us that they are indeed fakes.
We next learn that they plan to go to Jack the Ripper’s house. Considering it’s never been proven who he actually was, how did they pull off finding his house? Apparently that question is answered by a news clip saying new evidence shows the most obvious identity of who he was. Sigh.
Then we cut to four years ago for a short clip of how the two main guys started the ghost hunting channel. Then we cut to two years ago for a short clip of the team filming another fake scare. None of this is necessary. Seriously.
Next, the two guys who found the team fight, and one quits. Then the others are interviewed about going to Jack the Ripper’s house. Then they film themselves talking to fans on livestream while driving to the place.
Once they arrive, the caretaker dude that lets them in is a perfect parody of the classic crazy dude who gives the ominous warning.
The usual exploration and bogus scares begin, the group uses a Ouija board, shit gets weird, and I laughed when a ghostly voice said, “Get out!”
With 25 minutes left, team members begin getting possession eyes, someone in a top hat with a sack hiding their identity begins killing everyone, another killer in a black mask shows up, we get one killer reveal and motivation, the other killer is not revealed, I don’t know why people were getting possessed or why one of the killers would kill them after they did…yeah, this movie made no sense. And to top it all off, it ends abruptly while in the middle of a scene that really could have gone somewhere.
FOUND FOOTAGE: THE MAKING OF THE PATTERSON PROJECT (2025)
I don’t care if it’s found footage or a horror comedy. If you’re going to make a 90-minute horror movie, dedicate at least the last 30 minutes to horror-focused thrills, not just 3 minutes near the end, which is all you get here. And for a horror “comedy” that is trying to be slyly humorous, this one simply is not funny.
It’s supposed to be about the hurdles of aspiring filmmakers trying to make a found footage movie. I’d say the real story here is about a hurdle the makers of this film never got over…making a horror comedy that works.
Anyway, we are introduced to all the main players on the film crew one by one as they are interviewed. Then we watch them meet with movie biz people in an effort to get funding. Then they hold auditions. Then they explore the house in the woods where they are shooting their Bigfoot film. Then they rehearse and start to experience a variety of hiccups.
None of it is interesting or funny, even though that appears to be the intention.
The funniest part is when they dress one of the guys up as the late Alan Rickman because they told an old lady investor that he’s in the movie, and she’s coming to visit the set.
That is when we get a big sign that this movie isn’t about a film crew that’s making a Bigfoot movie encountering an actual Bigfoot. Nope. It’s about demonic possession.
Suddenly, 78 minutes into the movie, the demonic shit hits the fan for three minutes, like Evil Dead on speed. Okay. Evil Dead on even more speed. To think they could pull off such a great segment and didn’t embellish on it is a shame, and it simply isn’t enough to make this film worth sitting through.
EVIDENCE OF THE BOOGEYMAN (2025)
This is another formulaic flick that goes nowhere, and it barely uses its boogeyman.
A film crew of four goes to a haunted cabin in the woods to learn more about a legend of “the boogeyman”. We also get some unnecessary commentary sprinkled throughout the film from a few experts on the subject.
I immediately had to turn on subtitles, because the sound mixing is not good, so it’s hard to hear what is being said throughout the movie whenever characters have “whispery” conversations.
The group doesn’t do much of anything for a majority of this movie. They explore the cabin, they perform a magical ritual in the woods that spooks one of them, and one guy even gets the lone girl in the group to start having POV sex (found footage fucking?), at which point the boogeyman makes a fleeting appearance—perhaps the best moment in the movie.
Slowly but surely, the characters begin disappearing into the woods until there’s only one guy left. He sees all the others walking towards him like they’re under some sort of spell, runs into the boogeyman…camera cut. The end. This was the third miss in the bunch for me.
HOUSE OF ROOMS (2023)
This one feels like a SyFy movie circa 2005, and I was so there for a retro vibe that brought me back to a more hopeful time (yes, now that era feels like better times…).
I liked the look, the cast, the concept, the campy tone, the cheesy effects…and yet, the movie just wasn’t exciting.
The opening has a night janitor seeing a bad CGI ghost girl before getting chloroformed and locked in a coffin.
Next, we meet a devious TV producer who needs a hit show. He plans to draw together all types of people—different races, gender identities, sexualities, political leanings, etc. Yet it’s virtually all white people with no clear expression of gender or sexuality. Some of them have accents, so I guess that’s the diversity.
The group is put in one room in a dark building, and they get sent out separately to complete search and find challenges. Sounds like it could set up some pretty good scenarios, right? Nope. It’s just bland, bland, bland exploration with offscreen disappearances.
There are some confessional clips, the contestants bicker, they become concerned people might actually be getting killed, the producers watch gleefully from monitors from another room…
Special glasses come into play that allow you to see ghosts, but don’t expect to experience anything on the level of the 13 Ghosts remake. There’s also a film strip they view of people being experimented on, yet it still doesn’t bring any grit or gore to this horror-lite flick.
Eventually, we learn the identity of the actual killer, and there are some chase scenes, but the killer starts using a gun! Yawn.
The best part is when the ghosts finally do something exciting…they turn against the killer. And just when you think it’s over, there is a trippy twist in the final scene.
