Saturday 10 March 2018

Keep Watching (2017)



"Found Footage Home Invasion Horror"

Yes they're still making them. If nothing else KEEP WATCHING, which is out on DVD this month from Sony, does demonstrate nicely a few exploitation tropes that have been in use now for more than seventy years, namely:


1 Combining previously proven successful concepts. 

In 1943 it was FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN. We're still waiting for ANNABELLE MEETS CHUCKY. In the meantime here's Found Footage Meets Home Invasion. 


2 Killing the most expensive cast members first.

I suppose this could be considered a spoiler, so I'll leave you to discover who cost the most (probably) out of Leigh Whannell and Ioan Gruffudd.


3 Not Strictly Adhering to Your Concept For the Sake of a Lower Certificate.

So a gang has broken into a family's house while they were on holiday and installed minute cameras everywhere, so the subsequent horrors can be broadcast as entertainment on the internet. Somehow they manage to position the cameras in the bathroom so judiciously that we cannot see when someone is on the toilet, or in the shower, because taps and curtains and other AUSTIN POWERS-like contrivances serve to obscure our view. Our view of this snuff film featuring real deaths that is apparently going out on the internet. The Internet. That haven of coyness and sensitivity that people will pay for more of. 


4 Ripping off a better film at the end that makes you think 'why didn't I watch that instead of this'?

I won't say which one because, you know, spoilers, but let's just say I saw it coming.

If, however, you find the above appealing then KEEP WATCHING is definitely for you. I will admit I liked the use of drones as part of the internet feed, but it also added to the general daftness of the concept. Sony's discs contains no extras of note.


KEEP WATCHING is out on DVD now from Sony. The UK cover is up there. The US cover seems to think balloons are a bigger seller than a terrified girl. And who am I to argue? Perhaps a naked American man will steal them. 


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