This is getting out of hand. It was cool the first few times, but now its starting to get lame.

The new craze of Hollywood film makers (who’re apparently running out of ideas) is to make hand held video camera movies. And with their super rich industry being able to afford expensive CG, they can make something relatively low budget, add in a pinch of special effects to make it look as if it’s part of all that shaky action, and release it as a movie.

The breakthrough came with Blair Witch Project ONE. I thought this was a bloody cool style. Really captured the truth of the moment, makes you feel like watching something REAL. Well, I didn’t really watch the entire movie. I just liked the idea.

Then, many B grade film makers adopted the style. Some of them pulled through nicely, like the movie Alien Abduction, which is made to look like a documentary with ‘professionals’ commenting on the footage throughout the movie. Up till here, it was still ok, although it’s starting to lose its freshness.

Then came the all too cool Cloverfield. I like the movie mainly due to its viral marketing, and how this kinda style can be used to make a Monster Movie. In that sense, it’s new. A monster movie using the shaky cam method.

But the line should be drawn there. Instead, recently, at Apple Movie Trailers website, I saw two movies in the horror category, Quarantine and Diary of the Dead, which are of the shaky cam genre.

And every single one of these shaky cam shits will show some stupid woman in distress with their faces smack closed up on the camera, crying and drooling mucus from their noses. Sometimes, they even show men in such situation, which is seriously gross. They had it in Blair Witch, Cloverfield, and yes, you guessed it, in the two ‘new’ movies, Quarantine and DotD.

Super Scared Women in Shaky Cam Movies. Cloverfield, Blair Witch and Quarantine screencaps.

Alright, I’m not saying I hate this style of movie making. I actually liked it. But the fact that Hollywood’s starting to adopt it, and making more and more of it, when they could be making proper movies with proper camera work and directing, just irritates me.

The shaky cam style is supposed to be a secret weapon for low budget film makers to capture the audience without employing high tech rigs or involving expensive effects. And these Hollywood people are taking it away from such aspiring film makers.

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I think I can say that this is one of the BEST monster movie I have EVER seen.

Okay, so it’s shot on a hand held videocam, ‘blair witch style’, they say, but still, this movie, or ‘footage’ freaking delivers man. It’s bloody awesome.

And the fact that it’s taken on a videocam makes it all the more believable.

The first part of the movie, which was the party, wasn’t as boring as I thought it would be. And when the shit starts to happen, you really feel like you’re there. Everything is so damn real! Intense to the core man!

Ok, the running while the camera’s on makes people dizzy and wanna puke, but I got to sit at the last seat of the cinema and to me, it ain’t that bad. There were only a few instances of the ‘running with camera’ thing.

Rob, Elena and that other chick.

The actors did a hell of a job. Very believable. And Beth is just drop dead gorgeous. Hudson, the cameraman, is just great, and *spoiler* Elena (dunno the spelling) was cool even as she was bit by the parasites, got infected and freakin’ burst inside out!

As for the monster(s), it was awesome as hell. All that hype and ‘leaked’ concept arts turn out to be fake. So when I saw the monster in the movie, I was taken aback. It was very original, I must say. Freaky too, to a certain extent.

I just love the movie. I just love this kinda things, whether it be ghosts, witches, monsters or aliens, these kinda live ‘real’ footages just really appeal to me.

I remembered I did something like this in JC, with a friend’s video cam, and it really looked real. We were having late night rehearsals and I decided to make this spontaneous and quick horror short film. Come to think of it, I guess it was really the first one I ever did.

Unfortunately, the video has gone missing as it wasn’t compiled or saved. But yeah, you get the idea right… I love this shit.

So, I give Cloverfield 10 stars. Really. I freakin’ LOVE it.

And not to forget, after we watched the movie, we saw two UFOs in the tampines sky. We followed them thinking they were kites, but we found no one manning them. Freaky.

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