Horror Pick: The Den (2014)
IFC Midnight was running a flaming hot streak until I reviewed their atrocious dud Alien Abduction, but during that winning period I stumbled upon a sleek little techno-thriller titled The Den – the only movie that could realistically make ChatRoulette an even more horrifying place.
Horror movies have been attempting to cash-in on internet based scares for a little while now, like the dismissible Smiley, but The Den is one of the first movies to do so rather successfully. The plot is simple and unnerving, toying with themes of both voyeurism and psychological torment, but most importantly, filmmaker Zachary Donohue addresses the anonymous nature of the internet while channeling every bit of uncertain horror. The internet is a terrifying place where hackers can destroy your entire life, but Donohue injects a slasher mentality that properly capitalizes on every technological paranoia in the book – with a human element.
Credit Melanie Papalia with a commanding lead performance as Elizabeth, a doomed student studying the sociological state of users on a ChatRoulette-like video chatting program called The Den. Online, she thinks she witnesses a murder, and then starts to see signs of being stalked by the killer in the video. People don’t believe her, there’s some trickery, but there’s also a refreshing sensation of watching found footage cinema that’s not reliant on jump scares and whatnot. Donohue shoots the entire film from the view of a laptop/video chatting surface, much like Open Windows does as well, but there’s a creepy grittiness to it all that perfectly suits this techy cat and mouse game.
If you thought men pleasuring themselves on camera was the only thing you had to worry about on ChatRoulette, think again.