Archivo 253 pros:
- Good use of hair to be disturbing
- In Spanish, so you can feel a little more cultured (if you don't already speak Spanish, I guess)
Archivo 253 cons:
- Everything else. It turns out Mexico can produce just as bland and boring of a ghost hunting movie as we can here in the good old USA.
I shouldn't really even have to tell you what it's about; it's pretty generic as far as these things go. I guess there's a little twist in that these four are amateurs and aren't filming it for a reality show... they're just doing it for the kicks, man! Of course, they end up paying for said kicks with their lives (not a spoiler - it's one of those where they tell you right at the beginning that they were never found).
The building being investigated was once used a mental hospital but had a horrible reputation and allegedly yada yada yada and it was shut down. But our four investigators (a boyfriend/girlfriend, an angryish guy who smokes, and... uh... another guy) break in and check it out and bad things happen to them.
Or, I should say: Bad things eventually happen to them. Criminy, does it take a long time for things to happen in Archivo 253. But it doesn't have a slow burn type of tension or build to anything. Unless you count jump-scare pigeons, the whole film just flatlines until the last 20 minutes. I guess they yell one guy's name a lot (like, really a *lot*), which makes the rounds from notable to annoying to pretty funny and all the way back around again. So there's that.
 |
| get ready for SO MUCH Diego! |
I guess I should explain the hair bit. Once the S. has hit the F., they come across a room with a ton of wet hair clumps just sitting there on the ground. It's not particularly scary (and it has fuck-all to do with the ghosts/things/whatevers that are running about the building), but it is gross and kind of unique.
But the biggest flaw of the film (other than being really boring) is that as a viewer there is an overwhelming feeling of wanting to grab the characters firmly by the shoulders, shaking them, and yelling "Just Leave!" in their faces! I feel like that might be a feeling you get fairly used to as a horror movie fan, but it's really evident in Archivo 253. I mean, usually you get some token excuse as to why they are trapped, but not so much here. They aren't locked in; in fact, they are in a big compound, so they can wander freely from building to building. And it's not a "one night and the shit goes down" situation... these folks are staying here for at least a long weekend. When bad stuff starts happening or you start to feel creeped out... Just Leave! I would have drawn the line at finding a dead body, personally.
Archivo 253 brings nothing new to the table, unless you want to play the "drink every time you hear 'Diego'" and get hammered in 15 minutes. The camerawork is totally average, the characters are bland, the backstory isn't unique and isn't used in any meaningful way. It's extremely cookie-cutter as far as found footage ghost hunters go... and maybe even a little slower at that. It has very little to offer by way of tension or scares and feels like a waste of time. Very bad.
I would not recommend this film.
(note: this is all in about two-and-a-half minutes of screentime - and I missed a few)
No comments:
Post a Comment