#28 - The Den (2013)
While studying social interactions on a Chatroulette/Omegle-style website (i.e. video chat with random strangers) called "The Den", a researcher witnesses what she believes to be live footage of a brutal murder. She reports what she saw to the police, but they believe it to be a hoax, and are unable to do anything even if it were real. As she continues to be contacted by the killer, her friends begin to disappear in alarming ways...
This is a found-footage film, but done in a pretty original way - every shot coming from a webcam or a camera phone. Much of the film is simply the main character's entire computer desktop, which works surprisingly well. Besides the video chat windows, we see her writing emails, chatting via text messages, and using other programs at the same time. You are sometimes watching 2-3 conversations happening simultaneously, and I thought it was a really cool storytelling trick. Some of the camera phone shots suffer from the "why the hell would they be filming this" problem that many found-footage films have, but they didn't bother me too much here.
Most importantly, this movie is intense and often pretty terrifying. There is something about this style of film that feels very intimate and real. I thought it was incredibly effective, and one of the scariest movies I've watched this month. Highly recommended - and it's on Netflix!
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