Jeruzalem

Director(s) - Doron Paz (Temporarily Dead) and Yoav Paz (Plan A)
Starring - Yael Grobglas (Jane the Virgin), Yon Turmarkin (The Nerd Club), and Danielle Jaelyn (Prime Minister's Children)
Release Date - 2015
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Armageddon begins in the heard of the world's holiest city"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Found footage is one of the few sub-genres that have endless possibilities.  Anything can happen with found footage but the sub-genre has caught it's fair share of hate, even from me, for directors trying to be as authentic as possible.  This usually results in shaky camera work, horrible audio, and little to no practical effects with the kills taking place off camera.  This all started with The Blair Witch Project, which was far from being the first.  Found footage has adapted over the years and grown with the times.  Some have even learned to incorporate the latest technology into the films.  Case in point, the religious found footage film Jeruzalem didn't use a camera like a traditional found footage flick.  Instead, they used Google Glasses which I'm sure was still filmed with a traditional camera.  This was a bold move to keep things progressive but it could not save the film.

     The film follows two American girls, one wearing Google Glasses, who travel to Jerusalem as part as their trip abroad.  They run into a very young anthropologist and the three decide to travel together.  They get inside the holy city and befriended a young man that worked the hotel they were staying at.  They party it up and have some hook ups but things turn bleak for the youths when a biblical apocalypse takes over the city which just happens to sit on one of the three gates of hell.
      I have a fondness for religious horror.  Most of us that grew up in the bible belt do.  Like most of the horror fans before me, we tend to call bullshit on organized religion and can see it for what it really is.  With that being said, I find most horror films based around religion to be very entertaining considering religion opens up endless possibilities for the genre.  Jeruzalem starts out decent enough with a great period piece taking place in Jerusalem many years ago but falters as the film progresses.  The acting in this one is solid by the entire cast.  The film's lead, Sarah portrayed by Danielle Jadelyn, is only voice for most of the film due to her wearing the Google Glasses but she quickly gets on the viewer's nerves with her dimwitted dialogue.  However, the remainder of the cast, specifically Yael Grobglas and Ton Tumarkin, were great.  They brought a lot of energy to their roles.  Without them the film would have been a hell of a lot worse, pun intended.  The story for this one has so much potential but it fails to fully live up to it.  The film begins with a look back several decades ago when the religions of the area put down a woman possessed by a winged demon/angel.  This was a dark, gritty look that really pulled in my attention.  We then jump to present day and a ditsy teen is traveling abroad with her overly sexual friend.  This made the story feel cheap after having such a strong opening.  The film only gets worse from there when the found footage fully hits it's stride when it goes all out with the shaky camera and the kills happening when the person we are following is not looking that way.  Finally, the film has several on screen kills with some solid practical effects for them.  Sadly, a great deal of the kills takes place off camera and supplements those with horrible creatures made with bad visual effects.  Overall, Jeruzalem is a film that I had high expectations for only to be let down.  The film starts out on the right foot but quickly loses it's footing and comes crashing down.  I recommend skipping this one.