Watched the kind of interesting found footage movie JeruZalem via iTunes streaming tonight. This movie seems to want to connect itself to World War Z – it’s set in Jerusalem and the Z in the title is the same font as WWZ… but sadly this is a movie about demonic possession, not zombies. ToMAYtoes, ToMAHtoes, I suppose.
This is yet another found footage movie and its gimmick is that it’s a recording from a prescription-based pair of Google Glasses (sorry, Smart Glasses) so the lead character has to wear them to see. OK, that’s fine. Not sure how they kept recording or how big the hard drive on them is but whatevs.
What makes this an interesting film is that it appears to be filmed on location in Jerusalem. The three American tourists (actors) do appear to be filming in real locations in the city which gives them a lot of high quality production value. Unfortunately, the budget does pop up its head and the last twenty minutes take place in a dark cave system… maybe filmed on location, maybe not…
The premise – which does take far too long to actually kick in – is that a demonic plague erupts in old Jerusalem (where, it is said, one of the three entranced to hell is located). People are being possessed and there’s occasional shots of a giant demon tromping through town and being attacked by the Israeli air force. It’s kind of cool and its filmed well but it takes way too long to ramp up (about 50 minutes into the movie) and the characters ultimately just do a bunch of annoyingly stupid things that dumb people do in dumb horror movies.
So, yeah, this is a pretty decent movie with a great location and interesting gimmick. It’s not doing anything as a horror flick that hasn’t been done before except for that location and the actors. Is that enough? Well, it helps and the movie isn’t bad though a little too slow to get going.
Score: 75