I've seen a lot of "found-footage" movies in my time, but it occurred to me while I was watching 'Webcast' that I couldn't recall seeing a British one before. It's entirely possible, even likely, that I have. But I certainly don't recall what it was. Like with most things when it comes to film, the Americans certainly seem to do them better. This movie was a bit of a mess. It took all the things that make "found-footage" films so great and removed them. It became overly complicated, the characters were extremely bland and every time it was building some suspense it would do something to completely deflate the scene.
The film actually got me very early on with an extremely well done scare. I just wasn't expecting it or ready for it at all and it gave me a very big jump. After that though there was a real lull for a big chunk of the movie. There was weird stuff going on, but it was a little too weird if that makes sense. The best "found-footage" movies deal in realistic things I've found. Sure 'The Blair Witch Project' was (supposedly - see the theory about there not being a witch at all in that movie) about a witch, but we were never actually seeing the witch and didn't know for sure what was going on.
The ending in a "found-footage" is also very important. It needs to have a powerful ending that leads to the audience imagining the footage being found. 'Webcast' was going to have a reasonably powerful ending, but then it changed it and what it went for instead was very weird. I even went back and watched it again to try and work out what had happened but couldn't. This one didn't do a lot for me. There are better films out there to spend your time on.
