Die Präsenz

It is a boring carbon copy of so many movies with this plot and Horribly done. This German version seems it was just made for that' Germany 'with stealing every Part of the movie' Paranormal' and other video documentary style ghost movies and worse than that doing a poor job of it. Mostly a sit and squirm movie that will put you to sleep in your chair or more conveniently a couch when you do fall asleep. Very little of not happens and when it does it is petty crap. Not even worth a view on a slow night. Generic and anemic and just plan Boring !

I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of found footage movies, having listed about 145 of them. They tend to get low ratings here, for the most part, as this one has.

The problem is that some of them can be pretty boring, with one dimensional characters and bad acting and/or dialogue. Some people can't take the shaky cam or hard to see video.

This one however I found to be quite refreshing, if not entirely original. It concerns a trio of friends who go to investigate a haunted castle far out in the German boonies.

The setting is quite creepy, both indoor and outdoor. The action doesn't take too long to get going and things get interesting pretty quickly.

I found it pretty fun to watch and genuinely scary/creepy in just the right places. At 82 minutes, it doesn't slow down for long or overstay its welcome. All in all a fun watch. 7/10.

If I can stop just one person from watching this tedious German rehashing of Paranormal Activity with a twist of Blair Witch, then writing this run-on sentence of a review will not have been a waste.

It's awful.

And shouldn't have send the footage back to be honest. This is the most boring, non-scaring film I've seen since .... well another flick I found on Netflix.

It's supposed to be about two guys and a girl going to a medieval castle to investigate paranormal activity. At least the boys are, the girlfriend of one is dragged along for the ride. It's setup with some very brief background info/lore and then we're off. To watch black and sepia couloured videos of people sleeping, of hearing bangs and other noises, and seeing blurred images as "stuff happen".

Midway through the film the girl begs for them to leave, and I think that should have been the best really, as it would have cut this rubbish offering down to maybe half. They didn't, and she didn't get rid of her broken boyfriend and that in the end cost her dearly. And him of course.

Cheap effects, cheap production in general, pointless script - half decent non-screaming acting is bearable, which is kind of the kindest I could say about this mess.

There is very little that is original or exciting in this film. It's a standard modern-day haunted house "found footage" style horror. Some of the spooks amount to silly jumpscares, some of them provoke laughter at how silly they are, and some are so incredibly subtle that you would never even notice if you weren't actively looking for something out of the ordinary.

The characters are fine. The setting is fine. There's a decent enough backstory to the old castle, and all of it is clear and evident and predictable. It still manages to be fun and oddly entertaining. It tries nothing new and gives nothing new, and by the first ten minutes or so, you're well aware of this and thus have the opportunity to bail out early on without wasting much of your time.

The only major complaint I would have is that every single instance of spooky jumpscare or ghosty activity is preceded by very loud and very noticeable on-screen static and video distortion. It makes an already predictable moment even more predictable.

About the only thing memorable for me is this film is German and I do not know German