Keep Watching (2017)

Running Time: 1hr 29min

Release Date: Oct 31, 2018

Written by: Joseph Dembner

Directed by: Sean Carter

Review by: Stacey

You know something is up when a movie was shot 4 years before it's release, and when done so, is shown for only one night (Halloween) at 10pm.  It also seems like Bella Thorne is 0-2 when it comes to horror movies she stars in that end up in distribution hell with shit releases (Amityville: The Awakening).  There's a quote that floats around about not getting your hopes up, so then you won't be let down- that can definitely be applied to Keep Watching.

After 10 days away on vacation, a family returns home to find themselves trapped inside and forced to play a sick game of kill or be killed by masked intruders.

I gave you the ultra-cliffsnotes version of the plot because that's really all you have to know.  Ok, fine, I'll give you a little more so it makes sense (if it does at all).  The intruders, whose real faces we never see, have set up hidden cameras all over the damn house and in the most ridiculous of places as well (behind the number pad of a microwave??? OK).  According to scenes shown in the beginning of the movie, their purpose for doing this is to broadcast the murders for entertainment.

Like I said earlier, Bella Thorne stars in it as the grumpy teenager, Jamie, alongside her younger brother, John, played by Chandler Riggs (yes, "Coral" from The Walking Dead).  Not only is she upset about having to co-exist with her new stepmom after her mom's death, it's also mildly made known that she's unexpectedly pregnant but is too afraid to tell her dude.  There was a lot of weird exposition to get us to feel for the characters (which never happened for me) and it did take up a pretty sizable part of the first half of the movie.  Oh yeah, Leigh Whannell randomly played the character of the dad's brother who shows up for a bit, but he's also credited on IMDB as "mysterious guest" so who tf knows.

I'll be honest, I only half paid attention to what was going on (don't worry, I wouldn't be reviewing it if I didn't feel confident enough to) because as I mentioned earlier, there was so much setup and by the time they got to the good stuff, it really wasn't that good.  I found myself constantly checking how much time was left because I couldn't wait for it to be over.  It ended up being about as predictable as you'd expect, but I won't spoil it in case anyone feels like watching it.  I'll just warn you now that you're not going to see anything new.

The kills themselves were never really shown and pretty tame (I guess I consider an axe tame, woops), although there was one death that involved a hose of running water in someones mouth that made me cringe.  Eek.  Almost no blood aside, the acting was anything but tame- there was so much screaming from Thorne, I almost had to mute my damn tv, or maybe I'm just too old now and hate loud noises.  Chandler Riggs was probably just coasting on the fact that he was in the middle of one of the biggest shows on television and didn't really feel like he had to do much, because he didn't.  Mom and dad were forgettable, so there's that.

I won't get into the ridiculousness of the ending, but I just can't get over how fucking nonsensical the killers actions were.  WHY are you putting handfuls of cameras in strangers homes to film them, then terrorize them and kill them, but give them a fighting chance, all for the sake of entertainment for strangers???  It just seems pretty damn silly to me.  Clearly this falls squarely on the writer and director which Keep Watching seems to be the debut feature for both of them.

Listen, there are far better home invasion/found footage movies you can watch over this one.  If you've been reading my reviews for a while, you know what a sucker I am for the sub-genre, but as we've all come to learn there are just far more misses than hits.  Keep Watching is one of those misses.

.5/5

Check out the trailer below!