A movie that wanted all the credibility of found footage but didn't want to really put in the work. I know that found footage means you can sort of just wing it with the camera work and not really bother with the music but this would have worked better in a normal format.
It feels very deliberate how EVERYTHING gets filmed and the documentary approach (interviews with characters) doesn't help anything, the #horror scenes are cheesy and unfortunately they do include non-diegetic music.
There are positives though: although not a great example of horror that sears off the screen, there's a more than adequate story of a person trying to rebuilt their life under the ugly, watchful eye of those who would take someone's child away against the latter's will. They play it for a lot of pathos and go quite too for with it to be frank. It's not that I don't feel for these characters and their plight. It's that the whole thing feels like the author is exploiting their misery in lieu of better horroring.
The flashback element, where they are staying with that traditional family...I think maybe that should have been the whole movie. It creeped me out big time to see them painting that poor little girl.
There are other memorable moments that occur as the thing goes on and which I won't spoil. They admirably use a quite feather touch approach as we the audience just helplessly watch something that just might end up bad.
The final act carries a special sense of dread as we hang in the balance and it's fairly effective.
Those optical illusions add nothing.
