FOUND FOOTAGE 3D (2016) **

An independent film crew are about to start production on a found footage horror movie called “The Spectre of Death”.  At the last minute, the producer decides to make it in 3-D, which confounds just about everyone.  They go on location to a supposedly haunted house in the middle of nowhere where a gruesome murder occurred years ago.  Before long, weird shit that echoes the supernatural events in the script starts happening.

I give Found Footage 3D props for addressing the silliness in making a found footage movie in 3-D right from the get-go.  It also has fun sending up the genre and the inherent stupidity of most found footage horror films.  The behind-the-scenes problems that plague the production make the early scenes feel like a horror version of This is Spinal Tap.  After about a half hour or so, the film starts to become less a clever send-up of the genre and more of an anemic example of it.  

The 3-D works best when the actors are being filmed with lots of available light and the camera is being held perfectly still.  Since this is a found footage movie, the camera is shaky a lot of the time and most of the scenes take place in pitch black.  That is to say, they pretty much abandon the gimmick as soon as it’s introduced, which is a shame.

The final nail in the movie’s coffin is the bloated running time of 100 minutes.  There’s no reason to have a Found Footage movie running that length.  I could have also done without the self-congratulatory cameo by horror journalist Scott Weinberg (who also produced) playing himself.  It’s just a bit too cheeky for its own good and adds nothing to the movie.