vampiric

Two Canadian friends, Derek and Clif, set out to film an Internet series chronicling their epic yearlong trip around the world. This is the starting point for Afflicted, the latest in a long, long line of micro-budget "found-footage" genre entertainments. The macabre twist comes when one of the two flirts with a sexy Parisian at a nightclub and returns with her to his hotel room, where he is later found bloodied, bruised, and unconscious. Confused and in pain upon rousing, he soon discovers he is faster and stronger than before, but also sensitive to sunlight and disgusted by food and wine. Due to the demands of the format, the cameras continue to roll as he undergoes further transformations and investigates the mysterious ailment. Many people have grown tired of films shot and edited this way, frustrated by the way they replace formal elegance with whiplash-inducing hand-held compositions and abrupt cuts, but this is at least a playful and well-crafted variation, in part because it is a first-person vampire origin story rather than a conventional haunted-house romp, a la Paranormal Activity. While never particularly frightening, the storyline is cogent and involving on a dramatic level, and there are a handful of set pieces which prove almost awe-inspiring in their scope and spectacle considering the modesty of the overall production. The most exciting among them pits the main character against a well-armed, but still unprepared French SWAT team.

B

Meh. Really didn't care for this. Maybe I'm just getting sick of the found footage genre.

5/10 ( C )