Eyes in the Dark (2010)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Crappy film

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I really do believe that with a couple of rare exceptions that once you've seen one found footage movie you truly have seen them all.This is another that is presented in the form of evidence footage, it covers several different groups and there last moments on earth in the forest.What's after them you ask? Well, it's not entirely explained and like most movies of the genre you don't see all too much.So what do you see? A lot of average character development, a ton of shaky cam work and the usual screaming. Lots, and lots and lots of screaming.Sadly that's about it, very little happens and when it did it leaves you questioning why they even bothered.It's not the worst of its kind of seen, but it's still a mess devoid of entertainment value.The Good: The red eyes though ridiculous certainly are memorable The Bad: Very slow Usual clichés No originality at all Things I Learnt From This Movie: The whole found footage genre needs a reboot

I give this an extra star for creativity, but that's about it.The FBI computer interface emulation is pretty original, but putting the videos in a random order made the movie seem like it was taking itself too seriously. I really wanted to like this movie, but it makes the same mistake a lot of movies do - they make the dudes jerks to try to make them look "cool" so it's impossible for me to feel anything but contempt for their characters. The same goes for the girls who seemed catty and unapproachable. I don't think young people act like this, and if they do, I fear what the world is going to be like when they're in charge.I think the biggest problem in found footage movies is that people in real life generally tend to suppress their nasty sides in front of cameras; so footage movies made where the characters act like immature buttholes is very unrealistic to me.The werewolf thing is okay, but the problem is obvious - they could only show so much of the costume/prop or else it'd look fake. That's fine, but the scenes weren't suspenseful enough for me to care when it did.In the end, everyone dies, and I was happy that the movie was over.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT has a lot to answer for . It started a fad for what became known as " lost footage film " and you can think of a couple more off the top of your head . You also know how formulaic these movies are too and when you've seen one you've basically seen them all . You know , improvised realist acting that appears too wooden or too over emphatic to be real and video scenes that conveniently relay the whole story intercut with random scenes trying - and utterly failing -to paint a picture of a day like any other that ultimately ends in horrorEYES IN THE DARK continues the trend and yet for some reason I found myself enjoying this film much more than I did with the over hyped and overrated BLAIR WITCH and the big budget CLOVERFIELD . I'm not going to make any claims that EITD is some de facto masterwork of cinema because it's not and is merely a low budget horror film shot on a video camera being waved about . But what it does it does better than most films in its ilk and it simply does it by having the actors shriek and act terrified at some noises just out of sight . I found some of the scenes very creepy which surprised me since I wasn't expecting much from the film and perhaps that had something to do with it

EITD won't be to everyone's taste, however,the extremely raw feel to the movie actually worked in a sub genre that's rapidly becoming tired and predictable.Micro Budget movies are all the rage these days, the success though, is in the story, characters and effects that can be squeezed into the very limited finances. Most attempts fail, and fail badly, however there are occasions, such as with EITD, that what the filmmakers are trying to achieve, shines through with a production that vastly overshadows the lack of money.Eyes in the Dark is a throwback to the mid to late 90's when films like McPherson Tapes and dare I say it, Blair Witch Project came out to shock the audiences, and above all, left people talking about them long after they had finished. Whilst EITD has content that clearly precludes the possibility of it being real, the lead up, character building and overall atmosphere all combine to make the subject matter work.This is one of those movies, where you will either hate it, or, love it - providing you can suspend belief and do not watch it expecting to question whether it's real or not, you'll enjoy every minute.A couple of minor criticisms are that the obligatory FBI warnings don't really add to the movie, and a couple of hammy acting scenes, however those aside, this is a very capable and stand out addition to the Found Footage genre.