Closed Circuit Extreme

aka Circuito Chiuso 

Director - Giorgio Amato (The Stalker)

Starring - Stefano Fregni (Ubaldo Terzani Horror Show), Francesca Cuttica (The Arrival of Wang), and Guglielmo Favilla (Alienween)

Release Date - 2012

Genre - Horror

Tagline - "Live from the scene of the crime"

Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Found footage is a sub-genre that continues to surprise me and not in a good way.  Just when I thought I had watched the worst found footage film ever made another one pops up to outdo that one.  They try to make a film that really does look and feel like a found footage flick and the more authentic they go the worse the film gets.  A few weeks ago MVD sent me the film Closed Circuit Extreme for review.  Honestly, the film did not look that appealing to me but when I discovered that it was Italian I thought there would be hope for this film after all.  However, I just didn't want to throw it in.  To me, a found footage flick is one you have to be in the mood for.  That mood hit when I was on vacation and I gave it a go...wish I had not!

     The film follows a couple who suspect their neighbor is behind a series of deaths and disappearances in the area.  They break into his home and plant a series of cameras rigged to a motion sensor that way they can record his heinous acts.  We then meet their neighbor who lives there alone and runs adds in the local paper for a babysitter.  When young girls call him he invites them into his home for an interview and then proceeds to rape them before dismembering their bodies and burning their remains with his homemade fireplace.  They leave the cameras in his home for sometime and then head over to retrieve them one day when he is out but he returns home early where the young girl in trapped in his home with him alone!

     Found Footage has the means and reasoning to be the most brutal and realistic films out of all the horror sub-genres.  However, when they try to make the film feel authentic and realistic they often forget they are trying to make an entertaining movie and the films falls apart.  What made this film so bad was that they tried to make the film feel as authentic as possible and try to make the film fit into the "extreme" sub-genre which it failed at on both levels.  The acting in this film is hard to judge due to the way the film is shot.  Very few characters interact in this film and when they do it is very brief.  The few character interactions we do get seem forced.  They almost feel like they are just reading their lines without trying to stay in character.  That makes a boring film even more boring.  The story for this one is very simple an poorly executed.  The story may be simple but it could have been a fucking great horror film.  Hell, it is almost the same premise as the Eric Stanze film Scrapbook.  This could be brutal and entertaining as hell.  However, the film tried to make the story feel authentic which resulted is one of the hardest films I have ever tried to watch.  This film almost put me to sleep multiple times which is something that rarely happens.  Finally, the film lacks any on screen kills.  All the atrocities this film has to offer is done out of frame which is the cock-tease of the horror world.  The film also lacks any real special effects making it a pretty big disappointment especially considering it uses the word "extreme" in the title.  Overall, Closed Circuit Extreme is not that extreme at all unless you consider extremely boring to be extreme.  The film barely crawls at a snail's pace and offers nothing enjoyable.  Stay away from this one.