The Pitch:
What if we used a found footage movie idea to make a normal horror movie?
On paper, this sounds like a movie I'd be all about.
It's horror. It has a simple premise that doesn't need much explaining. The
hidden camera idea plays into my affection for found footage. The story doesn't
necessitate that the protagonists be idiots, since they have no reason to
suspect they are being watched. The idea invites sequels (more on that later).
I
I've saved this movie in my Netflix queue for a while,
eagerly waiting to watch as Halloween approached. My anticipation was not
rewarded. This just isn't a very good scary movie. It has no idea what to do
with the premise. It gets the basics down. The idea that someone is watching
you inside your house is unsettling, as is someone going through your stuff
when you are away (and using your toothbrush). Where the movie loses me is that
I don't understand the landlord as a threat. What's his game? What does he get
out of watching these people? Is he just a perv? Is he living vicariously
through them? Is he scouting for his moment to pounce? He'd scare me a lot more
if I knew what was driving him.
When he attacks the assistant as she's waiting in
the house to expose the husband's affair is when I really lost the thread of
the movie. None of that makes sense.
1) Why does he get involved at all? I immediately
assume that he does it out of protectiveness for the couple. He doesn't want
her to ruin a good thing, I guess. But, if he's a perv, the husband hooking up
with the assistant in the house is the best action he's had there. It's a
doomed marriage, so he isn't helping by keeping them together. If this is just
his best moment to pounce on the assistant, that much isn't clear.
2) Why does he keep the assistant in the locked
basement? I'd understand if he killed the assistant to get her out of the way.
I'd understand if he abducted her to chain up in his own basement. But, to
leave her chained up in that house makes no sense. He's fully exposed, trusting
only soundproofing, his ability to build a fetter, and that the couple won't
get bored and break in anyway. There is no good reason for him to do this.
None.
3) What's with the basement, anyway? He has it
soundproofed really well. I assume he's used it to imprison a person before,
but who and why? He can't put his renters down there, because the husband would
call the police if his wife went missing, and certainly would check that
basement. That space can only be used in this very specific circumstance. I
considered that maybe this is his first time using it to imprison; that it was
an improvised solution after he attacked the assistant. That doesn't really
track though, because the insulation is WAY too good.
I also can't figure out what level of competency the
landlord is supposed to be at. He's proficient enough to hide the cameras, set
up a network to view them remotely, and to have a soundproofed room ready. Then
again, he's very sloppy. He nearly gets caught numerous times. When things do
fall apart at the end, it's pure dumb luck that he's able to kill the husband,
drown the assistant, and abduct the wife without the police getting called by
one of them or neighbors who could've heard or seen much of this. This is a guy
getting professional results while using amateur tactics.
There are two kinds of good horror threats:
supernatural and plausible. Supernatural threats (Jason, Freddy Kruger, etc.)
work because they transcend logic. They are scary because they are beyond this
world and unexplainable. The 13 Cameras landlord is not supernatural, so
that means he must be plausible. A plausible threat is someone from a home
invasion movie or Jigsaw. These are natural threats that succeed by mastering
the rules of the world. They are always several steps ahead of the protagonist
and succeed by being ready for anything. The landlord isn't plausible either though. He has no apparent
plan. He's wildly inconsistent. He only succeeds because the screenplay is
designed to make sure he does. While Neville Archambault is excellent at
looking incredibly disgusting, he doesn't actually create a character that's
interesting to watch. And, horror without the scares is just watching bad
things happen to people. That's not what I'm into.
I don't know if I needed this movie to be more
exploitative or less exploitative, but I know the amount that it was didn't
work at all for me. Something about this inconsistency bothered me. You could
make a very effective scary movie where every time the cameras show someone
naked, instead it cuts to the landlord's unblinking face illuminated by the
glow of the screen. Or, you could show every mundane bit of the nakedness to
highlight how invasive his voyeurism is. 13 Cameras finds a middle ground that
felt uncomfortably leering though; like the filmmaker pushed as much against
everyone's nudity writer as possible. It was weird watching a movie that is an
indictment of voyeurism that also felt like an act of voyeurism.
13 Cameras is
a scary movie that isn't really concerned with scaring you. It's about invading
the privacy of some fairly unlikable characters then pivoting awkwardly into
some generic horror movie cliches. It doesn't even utilize the hidden cameras
well. It couldn't done so much with how creepy it is to watch things happen on
a security camera. Ugh. Such a waste.
Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend
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