June 11th, 2015 - The Den (2013)

Abbreviated Entry...

So most of June has been pretty brutal for me schedule-wise. Big Time Life Events™ of close family members (weddings/funerals/reunions) have conspired to make the movie-every-day thing rather difficult. I've still managed to watch one every day, but the end result of everything life has thrown my way is that I'm as exhausted as I've ever been. So to keep my sanity (and this blog going), I'm going to do things a bit differently for a little while - I watched the movies, but rather than the standard entry, I'll just do a little synopsis, a little imdb research, quote some of the reviews (can you do that?) and bounce off of them. Followed up by my general impressions.

Okay, thanks!

The Den

The Den is *kind of* a found footage style movie - much like the recent Unfriended, The Den unfolds mostly on a laptop screen. Elizabeth is a grad student (or something), and recently got a grant to study a website called the Den - a Chat Roulette-esque site where the user can randomly chat with people all over the globe. (Most of the time, much like the real Chat Roulette, most users just want to show their dicks.) But one day, Elizabeth sees what she thinks is a For Real murder on the site... and then someone hacks into her computer and makes her life a living hell.

Cautionary tale finds a young woman, Elizabeth, receiving a grant to study the habits of webcam chat users. Elizabeth uses a site that allows her to randomly chat with literally anyone on her chat site all over the world.

Things quickly go bad as she and her friends and family are drawn into a nightmare from which they can't escape. I don't want to give anything else away as the reveals are so much fun.

This gruesome found footage horror has almost everything you could ask for in a horror movie. Parts of it almost play as a slasher and it has a lot of scares. I found references to several other popular horror movies and had a great time with this one.

If you are a fan of found footage please give it a try. Most of you won't be disappointed.
     -Thanks "victoryismineblast" via imdb

This person liked it a lot more than I did. (I do like the caveat "most of you won't be disappointed.") The reveals weren't so much fun for me as much as suspension of disbelief destroying. But still, The Den pretty much works. The central gimmick (found footage via computer) is well integrated to the story, and there are some scenes with a nice, steady building sense of dread... like "The Call is Coming From Inside the House!" for the internet age.

Not too bad if you're expecting bad.

Like I said, it's enjoyable enough, particularly the more realistic first half of the film which some more gratuitous horror fans will probably be bored by. It tends to head into slasher/torture porn territory in the second half and becomes even less believable with a lot of things that simply wouldn't happen in such circumstances taking place and making you facepalm in frustration... All in all, don't expect anything fantastic and you'll probably find it's a decent horror/thriller to watch in a pinch. 6.5/10
     -Thanks "King Kong" via imdb

"Not too bad if you're expecting bad" is a perfect way to sum up The Den. I was expecting found footage claptrap and this was at least reasonably inventive. The way it's filmed - mostly on the laptop cam, but occasionally integrating cellphone and security footage - is nicely done, and there are some effective scares here and there. But I will also agree with King Kong here - the earlier parts of the film are definitely more effective than the later parts. It's creepy the way the film flirts with reality for a while - there's a nice undercurrent of dread and a feeling of "this could really happen." But once the ante is upped things go over the edge into unbelievable territory. The actors (especially our lead Melanie Papalia) do a good job keeping things as grounded as possible, but as things escalate it just gets more and more unbelievable until you sort of lose interest. I'd probably be a little less generous and end up with a 5.5/10.

Overall, you could do a lot worse than The Den. It introduces a little different flavor to the found footage genre, and has some moderately disturbing parts (especially if you're a technophobe and/or freaked out about invasion of privacy). It loses steam at the end, and the whole film suffers from it. If you're mad because Unfriended isn't out on Netflix yet, watch The Den instead.

I would   more or less   recommend this film.