20131123: Horror Review--Area 407

Area 407

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film 2012, NR, 89 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 3.6/10.0 from 2,239 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' and 14% from 682 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.6/5.0 from 176,752 audience ratings.  Spoken word is in English.
5. Directed by: Dale Fabrigar, Everette Wallin.
6. Starring: Abigail Schrader as Trish, Samantha Lester as Jessie, James Lyons as Jimmy, Melanie Lyons as Laura Hawkins.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Trish and Jessie travel by jet from New York to Los Angeles for New Year's Eve. Trish is video recording. Trish's high-pitched elf voice is incredibly irritating. The new year arrives during the flight; this was quite the anticlimax until the heavy weather hits.


2. The plane crashes in a desert area. Trish and Jessie survive.  Jessie takes over filming after Trish is incapacitated.


3. After seeing this film, not hearing the word 'okay' for about 8 years would be fine.  The characters kept repeating 'okay' while examining bleeding, broken limbs, no food, no shelter, missing people, and so on.  The anger at the intrusive camera seemed quite understandable.  The only use I could see for the camera was as a torch (flashlight).  Jessie, who is even less skilled at operating it, took over.  Jessie zooms almost continuously, concentrates on bloodied faces, and almost never focuses well.


4. Something goes bump in the night, kills several survivors, and routs them from the leftover fuselage.  Six survivors find a nearby cabin.  Eventually a car comes by.  The surviving air marshal has a conversation with the driver, who proceeds to drive away.  The bump in the night returns and scares them out of the cabin.  The ever-useless, petulant Trish holds half of them back.


5. They find a working two-way radio in the second cabin.  The initial 'replies' are indecipherable.  They keep trying and eventually contact someone who will try to triangulate their position.  The voice tells them to go back to the plane where the bump in the night killed people.


6. They obey this direction.  Will anyone survive?


3. Conclusions
1. This is yet another found-film, hand-held camera, cheap, bad production.  Why does a US air marshal have an Aussie accent?  Why does the blood on everyone never dry, never run, nor change colour as it must?
2. One line summary: The worst in found film; lots of closeups of bloody faces; not much plot.
3. One star of five. Two black holes for cinematography and acting.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 0/10 Hand-held nonsense.  All the usual failures are there: continuous and unnecessary zooming, bad focus, bad framing, settling on a subject who is doing nothing other than zoning out.


2. Sound: 5/10 Varies wildly.  Trish's high pitched voice rates a good minus four.


3. Acting: 0/10 The hand-held camera trumps acting.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Is there a story here?  Way too much time is spent on the camera zooming and re-zooming and focusing on characters who are basically not moving, not talking.  So far it is: plane crash, deaths, scramble, hope for rescue, then hopes dashed.  Looks like a nice ten minute short.