Nato – The Den
Where Nurse 3D was an outlandish pick, The Den gets a little more serious – but just a little more. There’s no comedy here, but Zachary Donohue brings the outrageousness through technology obsessed horror and brutal kill sequences, presenting a horror film shown completely through laptops and handheld devices. Creating a Chatroulette knock-off called “The Den,” actress Melanie Papalia begins a graduate program study that involves meeting as many users as possible and interacting with them – like an interview of sorts. What does she get instead? A bunch of dudes waving their junk and a gruesome murder that leads to Papalia gaining a vicious stalker.
The Den might sound like nothing special, but it’s Donohue who delivers a “found footage” convention without falling into typical stereotypes, much like Alien Abduction does. We’re chained to webchat windows while Papalia surfs The Den, but FaceTime allows our characters to chat while mobile as well.
The true horror kicks in when our villain hacks Papalia’s computer, as any tech genius could probably accomplish the same feat in real life. We’re so reliant on electronic devices throughout every aspect of our daily lives, but such technology possesses the power to destroy those invested too heavily into it. That’s the beauty of The Den – it may be a techno-horror story about a murderer, but at its core, there are true warnings about the dangers of today’s technology.
Raw, gritty, and full of voyeuristic terror, The Den is unlike any indie horror flick I’ve seen recently, making it worth its weight in horror gold.
