Playback (2012)

I expected a really crappy movie, but ultimately it wasn't so bad.Not very original and classifiable under the teen-horror movies (Friday the 13th and associates) in which teenagers doggedly continue what they are doing without following good advice and thus get into trouble. And this mixed with a kind of "The Ring" phenomenon. Slater also appears as some sick peeping pervert. I guess he has a shortage of money since he's joining a lot of low-budget movies lately.Eventually I thought the story was very vague. Something about filming persons after which their souls are being absorbed. And then they come up with that "Le Prince" figure .... duh ... I don't think I'm going to watch this again so I could find the deeper meaning of it. But ultimately I didn't fall asleep while watching this horror.A few nice horror images but a total lack of scares.In other words, a moderate horror that won't make you shiver.

The film's first segment is time coded at 1994. There's a few minutes of a bloody encounter where Harlan Diehl films a baby. The filming seems to form some sort of connection. The cops show up. Harlan attempts to flee with the baby, but the cops prevent that. The baby's mother Susie Diehl plunges a long knife in Harlan's back. He throws her down, pulls out the knife, jumps toward her and plunges the knife into her chest. The cops gift him with some bullets on the way down during the jump.The film flashes forward to circa 2012. A young pre-indie film director, Julian, is looking at replays of his current shooting with his co-stars.The next segment shows some of the teens in journalism class, playing soccer, planning parties, and doing it all with a slacker attitude. Julian meets Quinn, a man in his twenties who works at a television station (WPZM, Channel 13), to return recording equipment to Quinn. Julian takes the opportunity to ask whether Quinn's station has any records about Harlan Diehl's bloody death in 1994.What could possibly go wrong here?Quinn soon finds the Diehl footage from 1994, and has some interaction with it. That is, some supernatural (well, we'll see) exchange. Quinn delivers some illegal recordings of a girls' locker room to Officer Frank Lyons in exchange for cash. Later the same night he delivers footage about the Diehls to Julian at a teen party. He uses the chance to plant a camera in a girl's bedroom.When Quinn's boss reads him the riot act about the mess in the archives at the station, Quinn kills him. The distinctive piece about the film is that whatever possessed Quinn does so via watching recorded footage.What is this spirit after? Is there some way to stop it? Will there be a sequel after the next viewing of the strange tapes?------Scores------Cinematography: 6/10 Often dark to the point where much of the screen has no content. Full daylight scenes are OK.Sound: 6/10 Mostly OK, but sometimes the volcanic bursts of loud noise have to be dealt with if one lives anywhere near other people.Acting: 3/10 Not so good. Many of the actors look like tired people 25 to 30 years old, not teenagers. Example: Pacar was 31 in 2012. This is not Christian Slater's best work by any means. Daryl Mitchell gives the only performance I liked, and the few moments of clarity about the supernatural underpinnings of the film. The +3 is for Mr Mitchell, alone.Screenplay: 4/10 Has a beginning, middle and an end. However, there is not much in terms of resolution, and the exposition of plot is weak.

This is my first review here on IMDb, I saw this movie yesterday and it was so stupid but so stupid! It was full of clichés and a predictable story! Some things didn't even make sense. I won't spoil anything if you want to see it, one thing that made me want to watch this movie was slater but not even him could save this movie! Seriously I knew how the movie was going to end when they started doing investigation.And they changed the camera angles from some shots when they showed them a second time, you'll see what I mean towards the end. If you see it try to catch all the clichés... I actually wished that I would have decided not to see it! There is actually one part on the movie that he is supposed to be filming with his phone and the screen turns black and he just keeps going.The only good thing about this movie is the girls that's why I gave it a 2/10. I'm 19 years old...

After being disappointed by the lead actor's previous role this year in The Dark Knight Rises, I watched this film with trepidation; however, I must say this was no letdown. No film in years has given me the fun… the excitement… nay, the unparalleled thrill that this film delivered. With a running time nearing 112 minutes, Christian Bale has carried this film to new heights, unseen by the lesser films of 2012. The boredom generated by the lacklustre films, such as the canned laughter of Les Miserables and the over-the-top drama from The Hobbit, can shine no light to the masterpiece given to us by the relatively new Michael A. Nickles. I will be keeping my eye on this young director, eager to devour his next stroke of genius. I recommend this film to all the movie goers, young and old as they will find this to be the best film of this year, possibly the decade.