Perdidos (2014) Reviews

• Promising start, loses storyline

  cdavidson-972-1941402017-06-18

  In the tradition of shaky hand-held low-budget horror flicks like Blair Witch is this--in fact it makes reference to it jokingly at the beginning. The first half of the movie was mostly dialogue and the characters interacting. And that part was quite good. The dialogue was fresh and funny and one gets interested in the characters. Around halfway through, signs start to appear of the supernatural and that is suspenseful. Then it's all downhill as the group gets separated and we have an hour of nauseating shaky camera-work and strobe lighting and groaning and screaming without any development to a story. There is no story, really. There is talk of an exorcism at the beginning that is never followed up. There are hints of a killing that are never developed. There's a sort of generic violent demon that attacks people when they are alone and is mucking around with the rooms and changing them. In one of the rooms there is weird writing all over the walls, which looks cool, but we never know the significance of it. Overall, it was better than expected (budget was certainly low), good acting, but so much could have been done with the story.

• Good found footage

  misscath-543782018-06-05

  There was similarities to Blair Witch and the same sense of isolation and feeling of entrapment. Just read the subtitles on this or it's hard to know what was going on. Acting was pretty good. I disagree that there was no story, you just had to watch closely to follow it. The first 30 minutes go into more detail, and the creepy caretaker guy was definately hiding something. I like found footage generally and this was entertaining.

• Fascinating Perspective on Classic Plot

  fragorum_ager2017-10-16

  The other reviewer must have watched this movie with the subtitles off to have come away that lost. To start, the "weird writing" was in hebrew, which is clearly significant because at the very beginning, in the text introducing the audio clip of the exorcism, it is stated that this exorcism was the first of the Jewish tradition. Which also means that the exorcism being "never followed up" is the complete opposite of what happened. The chest in which the demon was locked after the exorcism, with the chai symbol on it, is clearly found in the room with the writing on the walls, and 18 on the door, by Roman later in the movie. The demon is pretty generic, sure, but everything introduced is absolutely followed up with if you actually watch the movie. The only part that left me confused was the very end, but ambiguous endings are pretty common in found footage style flicks. Overall, this movie is literally just a found footage demon story but Jewish instead of Christian. Nothing super outstanding other than that. If you enjoy found footage paranormal stuff and don't mind subtitles this is a great film.