DEAD RESIDENCE – found footage review

Being in the process of looking for a new home, I can tell you earnestly that it’s no fun. Maybe it COULD be, but brother, it’s no fun. It’s stressful. What you see is that houses reflect their owners in many ways, and like people, some places are just broken. 

DEAD RESIDENCE is a found footage film that finds a young couple eager to find a new place of their own that is closer to the city life but yet affordable. They decide to document their search for an undescribed audience in the hopes of showing people their house hunting adventure. The first home they look at is a small house that’s seen much better days. It’s been lived in hard and it shows. The previous tenants left the place in shambles but the couple sees potential and decide to jump on it. What we slowly start to find though is that they may not be alone in their house, and this unwanted visitor may be more than they can imagine. 

This is a short little found footage with naturalistic acting that, while not great, works well. The chemistry between the leads is good and while it’s clear they are not great actors, they do well as a couple and seem ‘real’, which is what the film needed. There is very little plot here, it’s just a couple updating a house and spooky stuff happens. The ‘security camera footage’ is presented like the footage from PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, even to the WHUZZZZZ sound during the footage. It’s creepy, sure, but not terribly scary. There is a twist in the film and I admit that I wasn’t expecting it. It’s super interesting but here is where the acting falls apart as the couple reviews footage on a hard drive and don’t believe what they are seeing and the reactions feel super off and don’t work compared to what we are seeing. It sadly derails the film completely. 

This is a shorter film, and if you’re a die hard like me, you’ll give it a spin, but the film, despite the charm it has at being so simple, it just loses steam when we realize what’s going on. I can’t recommend this, but do admire their making the film in the first place .

It ain’t easy. 

1.25 out of 5