Taped Up Memories

Going through a recovered video camera's footage, the exploits of a group of friends traveling into the countryside for a weekend of partying that turns upside down when they come across a psychotic hitchhiker who takes offense to their life goals and begins brutally tormenting them.

There's quite a lot to like with this genre effort. Among the more likable aspects here comes from the enjoyable sense of panic and confusion that arises the longer this one goes along. Dealing with three separate stories here depending on the date the footage was taken with the main group of campers going around teasing each other since one of the group is going into the military shortly, another group going on a holiday tour featuring some sightseeing, and yet another setup featuring various figures talking cryptically about military strategy and tying it into the current situation. This back-and-forth switching between the various factions leads to a rather jumbled yet intriguing story of how each one interconnects with the other. Once it's past this part of the setup, the finale brings about a nice bit of gruesomeness once it brings about the introduction of the hitchhiker. Despite initially appearing as a slightly off-kilter but harmless individual looking for a ride, the gradual darkness that emerges once he realizes their ultimate endgame offers this to feature a slew of increasingly more threatening remarks featuring the military history that soon becomes the launching point for the snap and eventual torture that takes place as he starts viciously killing them in graphic means. It's given quite a lot of brutal edge due to the found-footage perspective that takes place here where the continuous placement right up close and personal gives everything a thrilling touch for quite a lot to like. There are some factors here that hold it back. One of the biggest drawbacks is the film's scattered storyline where it's switching up the various figures at the forefront of each story making it difficult to figure out what's going on. There's a lot of shuffling around that takes place as we get introduced to various characters with barely enough time to get a name before getting shuffled off to a new story or insert and it can take a while before anything starts happening to connect the dots on each one so there's a bit of a struggle to figure out what's going on. Also, for being a supposedly unaltered and originally presented version of film, the different dates appearing out-of-order seems quite difficult if not impossible to pull off so there are some questions about how it's made that come into question that all lower this one overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.