This is how I imagine film pitches go in relation to the found footage genre:
Man or Woman walks into room full of people in suits and says: “Have I got a movie for you! It will be about aliens, or monsters, or ghosts!”
Person in Suit says: “It must be shot with shaky cam style footage. I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense, just do it!”
Man/Woman replies “Uhh, yes, I suppose I could do that.”
Person in Suit: “And it’s got to be shot at one place, on the cheap, with lots of flashing lights and blue filters! Also, put those neat little time stamp thingys up in the corner of the screen!”
Man/Woman: “Ohh k, I guess I could change stuff to make it like that.”
Person in Suit: “Perfect! You have two days to shoot it.”
Man/Woman: “Whatttt??”
Person in Suit: “Huzzah!” *High fives all around.*
I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that’s exactly how the meeting went for Jennifer Blanc-Biehn’s directorial debut of The Night Visitor, a been there, seen that a billion times before found footage film. The only saving grace this movie has going for it is a subplot involving a couple trying to make a sex tape.
PRODUCT INFORMATION
DISCS: 1
RUN-TIME: 80 min
ASPECT RATIO: 1.78:1
RESOLUTION: 480i
AUDIO: 5.1 Dolby Digital
SUBTITLES: English, Spanish
REGION: A
RATING: 18A
PRODUCTION DATE: 2014
RELEASE DATE: Sept 1st, 2015
PLOT SUMMARY
When a suburban couple hires a new age spiritualist to help with their troubled marriage, her advice to video their lives 24/7 to help reunite the family, turns out to reveal their son is having conversations with an unseen entity, calling itself the Night Visitor.
MOVIE
The Night Visitor only runs an hour and 13 minutes long, with about 5 minutes of end credits, so let’s see if I can describe the movie without actually spoiling the entire thing. First up, we have a couple in trouble. The husband, Cochrann, played by Gary Cairns, cheated on his smoking hot wife Jen, played by Brianne Davis, and they are trying to get things back together. They hire a hippy to help them and she suggests filming everything (cause you know, we wouldn’t have a found footage film without needless things being filmed for no good reason.) The couple obliges and the husband wisely proceeds to coax his wife into filming a sex tape. I personally think it’s a brilliant idea and what do you know, so does she. Bravo Jen, bravo. We now spend 60 minutes watching them trying to fool around while their son keeps interrupting them with some story about an imaginary friend living in his computer and nose bleeds. Sadly, we never do get to see that sex tape finish. Urgh, stupid kid and his stupid night visitor.
The Night Visitor is like an extended short film, begging not to be made. It’s already been done before (loud cough Paranormal Activity end loud cough,) so why bother with this one. Surprisingly, there is actually a sequel already shot, which runs parallel to this movie. The end of this one actually throws in a random scene hinting at the sequel, but I really couldn’t care less and just ends up making things more confusing. I say stick with finishing your first movie and making it good before jumping on to the sequel. What’s that? Oh, the director’s husband makes a cameo and it’s none other than the kickass Michael Biehn in a wasted role. Yay!
DVD
The DVD from Anchor Bay is put under a new category of films coming out that fall within the Found Footage genre and it’s labeled, you guessed it, Found Footage Collection. There isn’t anything super special about this disc, as there are no features and the movie is made to look crappy, so not much can be said about the video, The audio, which is Dolby Digital 5.1, really captures the beginnings of that sex tape quite well, but that’s about it.
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES
– What do you know, nothing is included for this movie.
VERDICT
I’m starting to get really tired of found footage films. They are all becoming super lazy with their stories and settings. It’s becoming the lazy man’s filmmaking and it’s really starting to show. Found Footage: The Night Visitor could’ve been a good movie if that damn kid would stop interrupting the parents, but sadly, a proper climax is never achieved.
RATING
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| It’s pretty cheap on Amazon.ca if you’re interested in buying it. |