Afflicted

Another found footage horror movie ? Holy christ, do they never stop coming ? I guess not, and as long as the audience love this genre, they will keep coming every year. By now most of you have probably seen at least seen one of the Paranormal Activity movies. A fifth one is coming, just in case you did not know. There are many titles out there coming out, so i try and check some of them out, but i don´t review every single one of them. But today i do, with a new found footage film called Afflicted. One reason i became interested in Afflicted is that the movie won Best Canadian First Feature Film, at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013. Not only that, Afflicted also won 2 Awards at the Austin Fantastic Fest 2013, both for best director and best picture. Pretty impressive for such a small film, so i just had to take a look what Afflicted would offer this genre, considering we had so many similar films lately. Is Afflicted a break through to the positive side, or does it fall down into the same dull ingredients ?

Childhood friends Cliff ( Clif Prowse ) and Derek ( Derek Lee ) do everything together. They have so many great moments together, it seems that their friendship could never end. They both decide to travel around the world to experience life in a whole new way. They document every Place they visit through their own travel web series " Ends Of The Earth ". One night while both guys are out to party, Derek meets a woman who he spend the night with. Cliff notice that Derek must have been bitten by this woman, and for some reason Derek is becoming very ill. For each day that goes by, Derek´s health is getting worse. With no answers or with nowhere to turn for help, Cliff try and find a way to help his friend. Derek is becoming another person, as he is transforming into something none human.

Afflicted starts off like an ordinary documentary, when we follow the guys on their worldwide trips. But once Derek finds a girl to spend the night with, he wakes up with a flesh wound. And this is where Afflicted kicks in, as Derek becomes very sick for each day. While most found footage horror movies use the same type of storytelling, Afflicted tries to do something different with the genre. When Derek is infected he changes, both his personality, but also his strength. This makes the story more interesting. Afflicted may have some ingredients we have seen before, but the good news is directors Derek Lee and Cliff Prowse ( who also are the main actors in Afflicted ), find a way to balance the styles into a nice package.  If you expect to see a lot of killing or body parts torn apart, this is not for you. But if you can give Afflicted a chance, if you enjoy found footage horror, then you might find yourself enjoying this. There is a mixture here of vampire influences and disease infections, a combination that appeal to me. The typical vampire movies can be dull, unless you have a nice concept to make something good about the content. Good thing we don´t get the same style here, in fact i can´t think of many titles that used this combination all at once. You can watch Afflicted on VOD, and it is coming out this summer in Europe, so i suggest you check this one out. Finally something good have been released in this genre, i have a feeling we won´t see that happen very often.

Rating: DDD