OK, this movie breaks the rules. I found it on YouTube and it claims to be found footage, but isn’t. It’s SORTA found footage. It uses a LOT of found footage, but also has shots of an actor that wouldn’t make sense to have a camera on him. It’s an angle that COULD be like that, but it wouldn’t make sense. Then they really break it by inserting a shot of the moon and other external shots.
Most times I see a movie that is not completely found and claims it is I turn it off. I have enough movies I want to see without watching ones that lie to me on what they are. VISHER though has such a really interesting premise that I stuck with it. I don’t regret it, but it definitely ain’t found footage.
Before I talk more about VISHER, though, can I just state how much I dislike this trend of cheating that a film is “found footage” when it isn’t. They have some scenes from a first-person perspective for a little bit of the movie, but it’s only a gimmick to lure folks in like me.
DARNY TOADS!
VISHER is the story of a scam artist. We follow a man who works as a contractor to gain access to people’s online accounts to drain them. Using computer technology and the leads he is given, he tricks victims into trusting him. When he reaches out to one lead, he gains access to not only her accounts but to her cameras as well and begins to see something on them. When the woman eventually reveals that she thinks there is a ghost in her house, he tells her he has seen it also. This man, who desperately wants to escape from the life he feels trapped in, must break the rules to help someone before it’s too late and risk the consequences in doing it.
The core idea here is great and, had they stuck with the found footage conceit it’d be really successful. The actors are good. The tension is earned. It’s really interesting on a seemingly small budget. The problem is that the film shifts and with it so too does the filmmaking style and the story. There’s a twist that is interesting but far-fetched and derails things. The very end is interesting, but the film’s tone makes so many shifts that it’s hard to get a fix on it.
It’s free to watch on YouTube as of this moment, and it’s interesting, and at just over an hour it doesn’t overstay its welcome. There are a LOT of logic issues here, and they are just too much to really overcome. It’s well made if lacking in any flair, but it just doesn’t quite know what it wants to be, which really harms it. Not bad, but just really good either.
1.75 out of 5
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 