“Reel Nightmare” is one of those films that I stumbled on through Facebook and thought it had a cool poster. Plus, the film has an H.P Lovecraft vibe to it. So, I decided to check this one out as part its limited run on Amazon Prime.
The film is about a group of friends who investigate a haunting at the house that belonged to a coven of witches for a student film. When one of them awakens them by using the Necronomicon, the witches exact their vengeances on those who disturb them. Soon the witches are out to kill anyone who disturbs them and put an end to their film.
This was one of those film where I was thinking it was going to head south into bad movie territory. In the beginning, I felt like it was going to a found footage film with the introduction playing the way it did only find out that it didn’t feel like a found footage film at all. This kind of bummed me out as I was kind of the expecting it but I still liked “Reel Nightmare” a lot.
One of the reasons that this works very well was the fact that Armand Petri’s direction was good. I liked how he’s able to make everything but the found footage aspect work. Whether it was the gore effects to the way the he and his crew made the supernatural effect works, it provided a couple of tense and bloody moments. The other thing that Petri does well with the direction is to make sure the lead performances are good enough to make this entertaining. He makes sure that there is chemistry between the cast as this is one of those films that goes half way in before any action takes place. By making sure the performances works, it made the first interesting enough to keep my interest.
The screenplay also written by Petri was good minus the fact this didn’t feel like a found footage film. He does a good job setting up his characters as he spends time developing them. It helped later on in the film as I was into the characters when the action takes place. The other thing that I liked about the screenplay was the fact that it built tension into the story. It was a key factor in the last half of the film as everything felt intense and I was into the characters. It made up for the fact that the found footage aspect doesn’t work.
“Reel Nightmare” works very well as a straight up horror than the found footage that it was going for. Still, this is a film worth checking out as it has some good bloody moments and good acting.
Review Rating: Three and a Half Stars
