Either the viewer punch himself or herself for watching this or they find a way to punch the makers of this for actually pulling such a strange stunt that never gives us the taste for horror, just thrilling ourselves with screaming and blurred images that doesn't reveal anything with a huge flashlight in the middle of the screen. I knew "Nightlight" was going to become a waste of time but time was mine to be wasted and no money was involved so...yep, only in it to see how bad or laughable it could get and to have a glimpse of Mitch Hewer (main reason actually). Alright, I was on a great track of watching just good or great films that I needed to get some sense of reality in seeing a bad movie for a change. It didn't prove me wrong but got a lot weirder than I thought.
Scott Beck and Bryan Woods are the writers and directors of this thing, a story that revolves about a young and restless group of full of vanity, full of smiles and despicable and unlikeable behavior (played by Shelby Young, Mitch Hewer, Chloe Bridges, Taylor Murphy and Carter Jenkins) going to a forest at night to play a game called "Nightlight" carrying flashlights and cameras (which tell the story, so here's another found footage horror flick) boring the audiences but having fun among themselves in this place where Ethan, another teen (Kyle Fain) friend of theirs, committed suicide some time ago. The game revolves around blindfolding a member of the group and ask them to find them in the deep forest, hide and seek but the thrills of nature, sounds, voices, strange things going on...until mystery takes place, folks disappear, tumbling and falling and screaming on and on. Theories: a killer on the loose? Nope. Dangerous animals? Maybe. Cluless and clumsy teens walking around without knowing where they step? Perhaps. The ghost of Ethan? Most definitely, they think.
90 something minutes that seemed to go on forever. The minute you thought "that's the ending" the image got back and kept going endlessly. And was I scared? Not one minute. Was I amused? One or two times. There was some funny bits (like the girl revealing her sexual fantasy with the Grinch) or some cute moments (Hewer seducing the shy girl who actually likes the guy but hates to admit it) but those bits and pieces can't form a whole in which we can say we enjoyed it. But we are tired of the found footage trend in horror, that goes back to 1980 (those who dared to watch the great "Cannibal Holocaust") to later become hip and better used in "The Blair Witch Project" and "Cloverfield" and after those fore-mentioned examples it went all downhill. Each similar film goes by each year and not only it's not scary, they're boring and uninteresting but it also lacks in holding a deeper importance, a relevance to life. Not to mention, most of what's made today it's just cheap, poorly filmed and nauseating. It's all about scream and shaking images. And we're talking about a motion picture, one that should be able to create and present images we can all see. Characters fell from the hill or something in "Nightlight" and it's just the camera showing a nasty tumble and we're like "What?". Above all, the worst trait (plot hole maybe, or people are just THAT unconcerned) is that the five guys split to play the game and when things start going wrong one or two get together, start asking about one of the friends, they don't find any or maybe find one, and later on they stop asking about the other friends - the audience knows they're dead but the characters don't so how come they stop looking or asking about them? Insert facepalm.
And the trivia says this film was shot in 2013 and for unknown reasons was not released until 2015. Unknown? The makers were embarrassed by it and tried to buried it as deep as they could but since money talks (the people who invest $ will want $ and more back, obviously) the creature was unleashed to the dismay of frightening audiences - terrified with the trashy quality of the movie and not for the horror moments displayed there.
Getting back to the initial remarks, my conclusion goes that I can't punch the filmmakers because they're far away from me and I'm not a violent person anyway. I take this moment to say they should be ashamed of themselves for putting this thing to the world. There goes millions of dollars that didn't produce anything good. As for punching myself, one minor slap on the face is just good enough. I'll go back to the better movie experiences. Going to this bad one made me learn. 2/10
Scott Beck and Bryan Woods are the writers and directors of this thing, a story that revolves about a young and restless group of full of vanity, full of smiles and despicable and unlikeable behavior (played by Shelby Young, Mitch Hewer, Chloe Bridges, Taylor Murphy and Carter Jenkins) going to a forest at night to play a game called "Nightlight" carrying flashlights and cameras (which tell the story, so here's another found footage horror flick) boring the audiences but having fun among themselves in this place where Ethan, another teen (Kyle Fain) friend of theirs, committed suicide some time ago. The game revolves around blindfolding a member of the group and ask them to find them in the deep forest, hide and seek but the thrills of nature, sounds, voices, strange things going on...until mystery takes place, folks disappear, tumbling and falling and screaming on and on. Theories: a killer on the loose? Nope. Dangerous animals? Maybe. Cluless and clumsy teens walking around without knowing where they step? Perhaps. The ghost of Ethan? Most definitely, they think.
90 something minutes that seemed to go on forever. The minute you thought "that's the ending" the image got back and kept going endlessly. And was I scared? Not one minute. Was I amused? One or two times. There was some funny bits (like the girl revealing her sexual fantasy with the Grinch) or some cute moments (Hewer seducing the shy girl who actually likes the guy but hates to admit it) but those bits and pieces can't form a whole in which we can say we enjoyed it. But we are tired of the found footage trend in horror, that goes back to 1980 (those who dared to watch the great "Cannibal Holocaust") to later become hip and better used in "The Blair Witch Project" and "Cloverfield" and after those fore-mentioned examples it went all downhill. Each similar film goes by each year and not only it's not scary, they're boring and uninteresting but it also lacks in holding a deeper importance, a relevance to life. Not to mention, most of what's made today it's just cheap, poorly filmed and nauseating. It's all about scream and shaking images. And we're talking about a motion picture, one that should be able to create and present images we can all see. Characters fell from the hill or something in "Nightlight" and it's just the camera showing a nasty tumble and we're like "What?". Above all, the worst trait (plot hole maybe, or people are just THAT unconcerned) is that the five guys split to play the game and when things start going wrong one or two get together, start asking about one of the friends, they don't find any or maybe find one, and later on they stop asking about the other friends - the audience knows they're dead but the characters don't so how come they stop looking or asking about them? Insert facepalm.
And the trivia says this film was shot in 2013 and for unknown reasons was not released until 2015. Unknown? The makers were embarrassed by it and tried to buried it as deep as they could but since money talks (the people who invest $ will want $ and more back, obviously) the creature was unleashed to the dismay of frightening audiences - terrified with the trashy quality of the movie and not for the horror moments displayed there.
Getting back to the initial remarks, my conclusion goes that I can't punch the filmmakers because they're far away from me and I'm not a violent person anyway. I take this moment to say they should be ashamed of themselves for putting this thing to the world. There goes millions of dollars that didn't produce anything good. As for punching myself, one minor slap on the face is just good enough. I'll go back to the better movie experiences. Going to this bad one made me learn. 2/10