VLOG is a film that I normally would just shut off after the first five minutes. The film begins with a young, hot-looking girl on her web cam filming herself talking, when really, all the forty-year-old men still living in their mothers’ basements spend their whole checks from working at the local game stop masturbating to her, but are lucky if they get a flash of a breast. She is basically one of these girls who make their living dick-teasing a bunch of poor bastards into buying her bras while all she does is attempt to act smart and solve all the world’s problems by looking into a web cam sitting in her bra and panties. In this film, the girl, Brooke Marks, is the most popular web slut online, and she attempts to go out with a hidden web camera in her bag to pick up guys to bring back to her, have sex and attempt to have a relationship. Then she finds a website with videos of her friend being hacked to death by an online serial killer who knows how to dispose of bodies. Brooke then becomes paranoid, turning to the police who turn her away, calling it a hoax. However, things begin to progress as more videos appear and more people die. Brooke soon finds herself in the eyes of the killer and must figure out a way to stop him before she is his next victim. Or is she?
Honestly, I hate films that involve bimbos on web cams sucking the money out of some poor dork who never even has held a girl’s hand in his life. I’m all about the killer torturing this bitch. Any guy who spends thousands of dollars on a girl who won’t even get nude for him on a web cam is bound to lose his damned mind and create a video series titled “How to Make People Disappear From the Face of the Earth”.
I understand the point this film is trying to make. There are plenty of teenagers and young women who use web cams to talk to strangers on the web all the time. Social Networking sites, instant messaging and chat rooms are all over the place for kids to just sign right into and meet anyone. This film is trying to be a wake up call for the viral video generation. However, it seems to me to be more of a torture porn film than one that should be taken seriously as one that might actually put fear into the millions of kids who go online each day. This film just goes in circles with things being questioned as setups. It does not instill any kind of fear in the viewers.
The film’s production value is a bit corny. Sure, it is done with all web cams and POV shots. There are police interviews that are horribly put together. There is an annoying-Jigsaw-from-Saw-like voice when the killer talks that is used too much in the film. (Kind of funny as Twisted Pictures helped produce the film.) In the end, we are left with a film that ends on a sour note. There is not a good story other than what is presented, and with a seventy minute running time, we almost feel cheated, as if there should have been a better twist.
The DVD has some special features, which really only includes, the film and bonus Vlogs from Brook Marks. I was not a big fan of this film. I understand where it was trying to go and what it was trying to be, but in the end, I felt just as cheated as the poor saps who spend their paychecks in porn chat rooms who don’t even get to see the girls nude. In fact, this film teases you, too, and also includes no nudity. Maybe this film will have some influence on some teen who rents it. It might scare them to think twice before chatting with strangers on the internet, but to an adult like me, it just make me want to make sure my kids don’t grow up with computers in their rooms and a -phones in their pockets. I already know the world is a fucked-up place and the internet has made it worse. I don’t need a torture porn horror film to tell me how bad it can get.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
