In 2007 author Phillip Muirhouse was left alone in a haunted homestead called ‘Monte Cristo’. He was there making a documentary that was to accompany his latest book. He also broke the rule of all ghost hunters…. Never Be Alone. The following is video documentation leading to he is arrest. – Written by Anonymous
Muirhouse is another found footage movie that had so much potential but ruined it with not so much stupidity but rather a complete lack of logic from the main character. It’s starts off boring, it has maybe two moments throughout the entire film that look like they might lead to some excitement but don’t because the main character is over acting the scenes and simply have no real attachment to him.
The story gives you a lot of information about the rules for ghost hunters. Those rules, the facts about the house and past occurrences are shown in some of the most dull ways ever! And, they go on for what seems like an eternity! At one point we’re supposed to be listening to an EVP session (Electronic Voice Phenomena). For nearly two full minutes the whole screen is a reel to reel player playing bad audio of what, I have no idea. It was about minute before the sound changes. So you feel like an idiot right there because you had been listening so hard for the first minute only to realize that crappy sound you were listening to was just crappy sound. It was literally ridiculous. But, it didn’t end there. Later we get to listen to an exorcism on cassette tape. That’s right, another couple of minutes of pure unadulterated boredom and for that entire time we have to look at a fucking cassette tape spinning.
Seriously, these moments were so completely boring that I half wondered if I was actually being hypnotized to do something at a later date.
I suffered through these scenes because I hoped that once the main character gets to the old haunted house, something would happen. Well, it does but you’re never going to see anything. It’s basically this guy setting up camera’s in various rooms while waiting for his teammates to arrive. While he’s doing that, he hears a noise and maybe we see something out of the corner of our eyes? He goes after it. He’s off chasing it on the upstairs patio. Can’t find it. Assumes like every idiot in a horror movie that it was nothing. He must have just been hearing things or seeing things or maybe he thought it was a ghost. I was so unemotionally connected to the character that he’s emotions just didn’t register with me.
He just does so many things that don’t make sense. Like in one scene the lights go off. He uses the worlds worst flashlight to make his way out to the shed where the electrical panel is and flips a switch. All the lights come back on. He makes his way back to the house to found the the end chairs in the dinning room are now on top of the table. He is perplexed by this. He continues to video tape it and then it dawns on him, he had a camera in this room. He goes to it and checks the footage. The chairs are where they should be, the lights go out and when the night vision kicks on, the chairs are on the table. He spends way too much being amazed at the tables. Films them from all kinds of angles. It was pointless.
This guy is looking at the chairs like Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis looking at their book stacking in Ghostbusters and I actually said out loud, “Because no human being would stack chairs like this.”
The next thing that was just dumb was when the lights go out again. When this happens, the found footage cuts to the camera near him that he had set up. It switched to night vision. He knows it would have switched to night vision. But, instead he stands there afraid to move. Then when he finally does, he doesn’t go for the camera with night vision. Just keeps stumbling around in the dark. Another character just going out of his way to get himself killed.
(Spoilers in the paragraphs below)
Then there’s the ending. The movie starts off at the very end. So we know he survives and he gets arrested by the cops. We don’t know why he was shirtless and carrying a hammer. So, the whole point of the movie is to show us what the hell lead up to this moment. Well, not in the eyes of the filmmakers. They thought it would be a good idea to just end it when with the entity sucking the guy into a closet. That’s the big shocker ending. It cuts to black and I start thinking, you better fucking not end it like that. I wasted well over on this boring ass film don’t make me fucking guess at what happens next. But, that’s what it does.
It does tease you a little during the credits to make you sit through them. But, don’t waste your time. Just the voice of one of the characters arriving at the house, in the dark wondering what’s going on and then she hears a noise upstairs. Cut to black again and thankfully this truly boring, illogical waste of time found footage feature is over.
The most frustrating part of all of this was that it could have been so good. But, the main character did things that just didn’t make sense a lot of the time. There wasn’t really any action, I didn’t feel any suspense at all. Normally, even in the worst horror movies, you feel something for the situation at hand. I didn’t. There was no sense of real danger. I felt like the guy could have walked out of that house at any time he wanted to. And, when the movie sets up a rule from the very beginning that you don’t ever ghost hunt alone and this guy does that. It’s just hard to feel for him. I didn’t even feel for the ghosts. There was just nothing in this movie that brings you into it. You feel like an outsider the whole time. Safe and secure.
Cast of Characters:
Iain P.F. McDonald … Phillip Muirhouse
Kate Henderson … Kate
Steve Lynch … Steve
Libby Ashby … Olive Ryan
David Saporito … Cop 1
Jordie McKay … Cop 2
Lewis Ryan … Lewis
Jacob Turner … Caller 3
Jack Walsh … Father Mac
Brenton Thompson … Himself