Playback (2012)

I love this movie so much

Simply Perfect

Powerful

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

In the intro, some guy beats up a girl, we see a woman in a bathroom with her throat slashed, the girl screams about her baby, he kills her and grabs the baby. Now he's doing all this while filming it. When the cops arrive, they shoot him--the camera right next to the baby. Years later some high school kids work on a film project for class recreating the killings. There's the main kid Julian, his gorgeous girlfriend, another couple that are friends, and some other girl. Lending them some equipment is a creepy kid Quinn with a creepy van who works at a TV station. He has some deal with a corrupt cop and provides him with peeping tom videos of high school girls. One day Julian asks Quinn to find him some of the real life footage of the murders from the intro. Quinn with the help of the cop finds some and looks at them. Something happens to him while he watches. He develops some power to affect others by touching the TV screen that is focused on them. In that fashion, he manages to turn two girls into killers, as well as killing them afterward. His face also starts to rot.Another issue is relevant. The first guy to have taken a picture and movie footage was thought to be demonic. Both Julian and Quinn see the footage. We also discover that the killer from the intro is a descendant of the early filmmaker. Julian's mom is a cop and starts snooping into what Julian is doing, when he discovers a secret. Of course Quinn will flip out and attack Julian and his girl.Playback goes beyond most movies of its kind. It could easily have focused on the serial killer and family issue or on the evil film pioneer, instead it combined both, but doesn't make these relevant enough. There is also an interesting twist in terms of the identities of some of our main characters, but it too could have been filmed in a way that the revelation is more powerful. Acting is alright for a B movie. Slater gets a short and not very relevant role. Ambyr Childers is gorgeous. The problem is though that the writer/director is a better writer than he is a director. Playback is enjoyable but clearly there was more potential in the story.

Movie equals sh*t, let's get that out of the way. Now the main event : this movie mentions Louis Le Prince as the originator of film. The legend in the film is that Le Prince was the Devil and he used the film to steal souls; its sort of an extended version of the Native American myth that when one has their picture taken the camera steals part of their spirit. That should be the f*cking movie! Not a bunch of teenage highschoolers in modern America! Why wouldn't you make the far-out period piece about the Devil stealing souls with the world's first movie camera? That movie, that movie would creep people out, that would be a real horror movie, this movie, Playback, no bueno. Its called writing, when used well it can reinvent reality itself, when used poorly hey you get this and like the tens of thousands of other boring wasted movies.

I'm a humongous horror fan. Hostel and Saw are amazing. So when I saw this at family video, I thought why not? I absolutely love Johnny Pacar, so I knew it had to be decent, right?Right I was! The acting is solid, the gore is realistic, and the plot twists are believable. I read all the reviews beforehand and expected a stinker, but do NOT read most of the reviews. They're either making fun or they were expecting something else. Yes, there are plot holes. Yes, the ending is predictable. But it's fun, it made me jump a couple times, and the gore doesn't look ridiculously fake like most B movies!Will I watch it again? Heck yeah! Will I buy it? Possibly. Do I recommend it? Absolutely.

I loved this movie. The suspense, the cinematography, the music, everything. Definitely a horror movie for the shelves. I know it has gotten some bad reviews and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the bad reviews are just because it's not Christian Slaters BEST work. But come on, how can a guy top 3:10 to Yuma or the Dark Knight Trilogy? Christian Slaters performance in this film was far from bad. Also, I have to give a shout out to the guy who did the lighting. (I'd give you his name but I can't figure out how to open up a new tab on this library PC) Every scene was lit so well. The darks and the lights reflected Slater's emotions like a mirror. I was having flashbacks to The Fighter!