Found footage is often held up as a gimmick that dragged down the entirety of the horror genre after the light bulb went off that movies could be produced quickly, efficiently, and cheaply that were more often than not capable of turning a profit at the box office, but Project Almanac was indicative of the issues that plagued countless other titles when the trend emigrated to every form of cinema.
While Chronicle thrived by applying the technique to a superhero origin story, director Dean Israelite didn’t find the same levels of success when crafting a found footage time travel thriller. The concept was solid without a doubt, but the execution was the single worst aspect of an intriguing time-tampering tale that had the potential to be so much better had it been shot like a regular old feature.
Of course, budgetary constraints may have played a factor given that Project Almanac only cost $12 million to produce, but a recurring theme throughout the lukewarm reviews across the board was the sentiment that a vastly superior end product would have emerged were the frenetic shaky-cam abandoned entirely.
Regardless of whether or not the headache-inducing camerawork crippled Project Almanac‘s shot at maximizing its own potential, streaming subscribers have decided to give it another whirl and indulge in the adventures of a high school science geek with dreams of MIT who stumbles upon his late father’s blueprints for a “temporal displacement device,” before wreaking havoc with the consequences.
Per FlixPatrol, the largely forgotten fable is back among the most-watched titles on both Google Play and iTunes this week, so maybe a minor resurgence is on the cards.
Published: Jul 21, 2023 01:50 am