MD: Area 51
It’s a shame that Oren Peli, the man who jump-started horror’s found footage craze, made his second movie irrelevant while the subgenre exhausted itself. Area 51 was supposed to come out years ago, but for whatever reasoning Peli and Blumhouse decided, Area 51 had plenty of time to be perfected. There’s two problems with that statement.
1) They screwed themselves by taking so long.
2) Perfection was MOST CERTAINLY not achieved, which is inexcusable given the time production took.
Had Area 51 come out when expected, Peli’s alien adventure might seem relevant, but so many movies beat this sleepy chase sequence to its own punch. Hell, Peli produced movies himself that beat Area 51 to certain gags, which makes me wonder which came first, Chernobyl Diaries or Area 51?
This boring, shaky, distorted mess does everything a good found footage horror flick SHOULDN’T do, and no one involved seems to care. Ever wanted to see a director throw in the towel and admit defeat? Trust me, you don’t. Yikes.