Horrific movies have more and more links with the Internet or social networks, it’s logical, you’ll say, you have to evolve with the times! And among them, we can find some pitiful ones like “Echap” or “#Horror”, some not too bad with “Unfriended” (however so much better than its unconfessed remake “Friend request”!) and some very good with the chilling “Megan is missing”. So when on top of that we have one that mixes the codes of the aforementioned genre with those of the “found footage movies” that are currently swarming on the screens, we have the right to wonder about the quality of this one, as everything seems to have already been done in this field and the value of the show has become quite poor, as a proof of this is the pitiful “Paranormal activity” franchise! However, this is what The Den offers (originally released in Russia in 2013!?), a film by Zachary Donohue released in a few American theaters and simultaneously on VOD in 2014, then in our country a little later, directly on DVD. It tells the story of Liz, a student who gets a grant for her thesis on “The Den”, a site clone of “Chatroulette” on which, with her webcam, she will record all her interactions with complete strangers. But maybe not all of them are suitable…
Here, the basis of the horror comes from a chat site, through which you can chat live randomly with people from all over the world, but sometimes some are to be avoided and this is the discovery that unfortunately Liz, our heroine, will make! It’s basic and not very horrific as a story I grant you, but it’s only the beginning! Because after a rather banal and not very long introduction, during which we see people scrolling on computer screens, some of them being funny, others eccentric or exhibitionist, we enter rather quickly in a thriller to finish in a pure horror film with the use of the GO-Pro camera to shoot live, justifying the found footage side of the film and making us leave the decor serving as the main frame, namely Liz’s living room and bedroom. Rather well seen!
Of course, we’ve seen a lot of feature films shot with a handheld camera and this one is not necessarily the best directed. However, it works quite well and we don’t see the time passing. The main character arouses empathy, on the one hand because she is cute but not too much with her “girl next door” physique, but also because she seems less stupid than the average as too often in horror movies, even if sometimes she seems to play with bad luck. As for the other actors, even if some of them could be better, they do not do badly considering their poor Curriculum Vitae and therefore their little experience behind the camera, but especially considering the budget of the film, around 500 000 dollars.
Moreover, the immutable “Parkinson’s” version of the shaky camera that we are used to seeing in this type of production is a little abandoned, Zachary Donohue proposing instead to live most of the action through a computer screen. Thus, we have the mouse cursor navigating on the screen, windows opening, sound alerts of received messages and other calls with webcam. Then in the very last part, it will move a little more with the use of a camera fixed on a helmet that our heroine will wear. This way of doing things is interesting because it exploits several ways of putting the plot into images. This is the great strength of The Den, which avoids falling too quickly into the easy way and succeeds in maintaining its plot at a good pace, passing intelligently from a humorous introduction with the parade of unusual personalities to the setting up of a fearsome, even unbearable suspense when Liz witnesses a live murder and finds herself embarked in a dangerous adventure.
So even if we can think that the scenario is not very original and that the message of the film aiming to warn of the dangers of the Internet is a little too reductive, it should nevertheless be shown as a public utility to some people in order to wonder more about our relationship with images and our ignorance of the dangers of the web, especially when we are beginners in the matter or a little too naive…
The Den is yet another found footage, but this one stands out because the action and the tension are there. And even if the usual clichés and incoherent actions of some protagonists are there, the rhythm and the actors are good enough to make us spend a pleasant moment. But above all, the immersion is such that we quickly get caught up in the game and that the anxiety assails us until a final quite successful because graphically violent and chilling. In any case, some of the script springs are interesting and even rare at this level not to be underlined despite a moralizing side about the potential risks of social networks and the Net a little too clear cut.
