31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Followed

Followed

96 mins.

Dir. Antoine Le

2018/USA

Found footage movies, the easiest cheapest way to make a film.  In today's social media world, these type of flicks are more relevant than ever.  But it also makes them harder to stand out from each other and offer something new.  Followed, while filmed two years ago, just got released in drive-ins and VOD this year along with another relative found footage film Host.  

In Followed, DroptheMike is a vlogger, who shares videos of heinous killers, victims and death.  He gets an offer from Haute Gothic, basically Hot Topic, that if he can reach 50,000 subscribers they will give him $250,000, which he desperately needs, because he is a lazy person with no job and has a pregnant girlfriend at home.  In order to do this he decides to up the ante and spend a night at the notorious Lennox hotel in downtown LA on Halloween.  The Lennox hotel is reportedly haunted and is home to some grisly unsolved murders, including one by made-up serial killer, The Night Crawler, who murdered girls in room 428, the precise room that Mike and his crew will be staying in.  Of course unexplainable shit happens, his crew gets freaked out and splits leaving him alone, but he is so close to meeting his goal he must go on.  His viewers want to know what lurks in the boiler room of the hotel, and he must appease his audience at any cost.  More freaky shit goes down, and DroptheMike returns to his vlog after a few weeks to digest the events that have happened.  But are the events over?  Did something follow him home?  Is anyone even reading this?

The Lennox hotel is based on the Cecil Hotel in downtown LA, a real hotel where numerous suicides have taken place and Richard Ramirez, the Night stalker was rumored to have stayed while on his killing spree, as well as another killer who murdered three women in the hotel.  Most recently in 2013, the viral footage of Elisa Lam brought the hotel in the limelight again.  Take from wikipedia - "The video depicts Lam repeatedly pressing the elevator's buttons, walking in and out of the elevator, and possibly attempting to hide from someone.  It was recorded shortly before her disappearance; her naked body was subsequently discovered in a water supply cistern on the roof, following complaints from residents of odd-tasting water and low pressure.  How she got in the cistern remains a mystery."  You can find the footage on Youtube.  The hotel was also the setting for American Horror Story season five and the movie Barton Fink.

Definitely a great background to base a movie on, and it makes sense to make it relative basing it around a vlog.  However, with bad acting, bad writing and cheap jump scares, it can take away from a good idea.  Which is sadly the case with Followed, as well as previously mentioned movie, Host.  Sometimes subtlety is better and in your face shocks only cheapen the material.  Add in annoying characters and in the case of Followed, trying to be as real as it can be with multiple camera edits and music it distracts from the realism.  So when it comes to Host, you are better off watching The Host and when it comes to Followed, you are better off watching It Follows.