The Presence

One of the worst found-footage horror flicks of all time, The Presence follows three friends (Liv Lisa Fries’ Rebecca, Matthias Dietrich’s Markus, and Henning Nöhren’s Lukas) as they make the spectacularly ill-conceived decision to visit and stay at an old, supposedly haunted castle – with the movie detailing the protagonists’ subsequent efforts at coping with the spooky shenanigans that predictably begin to ensue. It’s an almost shamefully by-the-numbers premise that’s employed to less-than-entertaining effect by writer/director Daniele Grieco, as the filmmaker, making his fiction debut here, has infused the proceedings with an oppressively slow pace that highlights the movie’s many, many deficiencies – with the uneventful narrative and aggressively low-rent visuals and production values ranking high on the film’s list of amateurish and flat-out incompetent elements. The unwatchable vibe is perpetuated by Grieco’s inability to establish a creepy atmosphere, and it’s fairly disheartening to note just how many conventions of the genre the director relies on to jolt the viewer (eg loud noises, sudden movement, etc, etc). And as interminable as the movie’s first half is, The Presence really begins to go off the rails as it lumbers into its progressively incoherent third act – with the story’s Blair Witch Project-like detour proving absolutely disastrous and ensuring that the final half hour is nothing short of unwatchable. The laughably underwhelming finale, which is downright nonsensical, cements The Presence‘s place as a uniquely awful piece of work, and it seems apparent that the notoriously mediocre found-footage genre has reached its nadir.

no stars out of ****