Elizabeth Benton is doing a study on the social aspects of
people who use webcam chat rooms. After
applying for and receiving grant money, Elizabeth spends her days logged onto a
webcam site, named The Den. When she
stumbles upon a user who is bound and gagged and then later killed on camera,
Elizabeth begins to investigate and recruits her friends for help. It is not long after this that Elizabeth
discovers that she and her loved ones have been targeted as well. When the police can’t help her, she is on her
own as she tries to help save her friends, family and herself.
Even though I am not a fan of “found footage” films, I
decided to watch this just the same because the premise intrigued me and it
received lots of positive viewer reviews on Netflix. The movie is very slow to start and basically
shows a lot of male anatomy and stupid sexual video shorts as she scrolls
through users looking for a conversation.
There is very little time involved showing her actual conversations with
people she meets and chats with. The
bulk of the film strictly shows her sitting at her computer (from a vid-cam
viewpoint) and the activity she does while logged on (emails, phone calls to
friends, eating, sleeping, walking around in her underwear…). There are brief times when she does leave the
house but these are shown through the vid-cam in her phone. It isn’t until about 30 minutes in that
anything significant truly happens.
The stalker-ish events that occur after the half hour of boredom
are done well but I didn’t really find it heart pounding or
on-the-edge-of-my-seat suspense as other reviewers found. The suspense didn’t really ramp up until the
last 15 minutes or so of the movie. This
is also when the filming style changed to that of a first person survival game (akin
to video games such as The Evil Within).
Overall I feel the movie is worth a watch and decent in its
own right. The ending should leave you
satisfied as to what was going on and how it was all wrapped up. Melanie Papalia stars as Elizabeth Benton
with Zachary Donohue as the director.
It's available now streaming on Netflix or you can rent it online at Amazon or just buy it straight out...Links are provided...Enjoy!
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