‘What’s Eating David O’Reilly’
A pretty solid indi horror that got largely looked over.
Everyone who’s a fan of my reviews, knows I’m not a fan of ‘Shaky Camera.’ There are exceptions to this, as with all things, but I feel it’s a band wagon most studios need to start falling off.
This movie’s also part of that new age haunting movie trend, like Paranormal Activity which is another bandwagon genre I’m fucking over. Needless to say, both of these things should have spelled certain doom for this movie, and yet, I really did enjoy it. It’s important to note that both can be done right and like the movie Alien Abduction, this movie shows how to do it right. The ‘Shaky Camera’ was a bit gratuitous at times but not so obnoxious it completely ruins the movie. It just adds a little extra atmosphere where lighting and filters were already pushed to their limits.
I know for a fact that through the shadows and behind the distortion of glass, their practical FX were basically standard Fangoria masks. They could have been from a friends collection, or maybe even borrowed.
The acting actually wasn’t terrible. It was on par for horror, even a little better than I expected. And the plot is dumb simple. Demons are trying to get to David and if they do, they’ll take him over. Fuck knows why and who care. There’s no reason to always complicate things. Sometimes simple is the best.
I completely recommend this movie for anyone who’s a fan of found footage or new aged paranormal movies. But it’s also good enough for all Horror Heads. I think it may even be good enough for general adult audiences. Suffice to say, if you like the Paranormal Activity franchise, this is actually better, so give it a shot.
SPOILERS!!!
I like this movie’s spin on possession. You see, nothing really ever get’s into the characters and controls him. Rather it just seeks to scare him into acting crazy, violently at times, around his friends.
It does give up the ghost a bit (pun intended), by showing you a lot of the gory spooky stuff pretty quick into the movie but this doesn’t damage the atmosphere, nor does it upset the pacing. You see, giving you a quick glimpse of the entities, then locking them on the other side of a door you can’t see through, is a lot of what works about this movie. You don’t really know what’s out there, and you just cant see it all the time, even though you know it’s somewhere out there, or even in the house where you didn’t think to look.
You only really see the ‘monsters’ when you’re looking through the eyes of David O’Reilly. However, that doesn’t mean, they don’t attack and affect the other characters, or that the other characters don’t interact with them in some way. David O’Reilly is really their target and they’re version of possession is to simply drive him mad. For all you know, at first, David really is just crazy. You can never really be sure.
You see, they don’t get inside David, so much as they get TO David. They’re after him to manipulate, not to to ride. This isn’t some demon out to make David fuck himself with a crucifix, its out to destroy his mind and his life.
I recommend this movie. The acting is a little off, the shaky camera’s a little annoying, but the pacing is good, the atmosphere is great, and story itself unique, interesting and executed smashingly.