Good afternoon, House of Madness shadows:
Doesn't it suck when a band covers one of your favourite songs, only to butcher it into little tiny pieces of garbled cacophony? Or when one of your friends sees the newest Bill Burr special before you, and repeats the jokes in a jumbled mess that wouldn't be funny to a teenager hopped up on nitrous oxide, while you tickle their feet with ostrich feathers. Then there's the dad trying his best to keep up with the times sporting his new Air Jordans, and jeans so tight you can see the outline of his tighty-whities embossed with the Walmart logo. Too many times people try to be things they're not, and instead of etching their own mark on society, they'd rather recycle someone else's work, slap a coat of semi-gloss paint on it, and call it their own. Of course there are good cover songs. Of course you can repeat a joke and reap in the laughs. And of course people can still dress for success as they age. What I'm saying is, if you can't bring a new take to enhance an old idea, or you're only interested in perfunctory behaviour, then perhaps it's high time you stopped trying to make strides with the ideas of others, and instead dig deep within and just be you. Unfortunately, "Always Watching" tries to sing Elton John songs in slapstick context, while wearing yoga pants 11 sizes too big.
I just reviewed the web series "Marble Hornets" two days ago, so I was eager to sit down and watch what I thought could be a more polished product considering this time it's a movie studio with a budget, and the source material is so good that the reviews are most certainly skewed, simply because found footage horror seems to receive less respect than Rodney Dangerfield. Nope. Instead of trying to build on or even recapture the tension and persona of "MH", "Always Watching" instead tries to take an idea that's already been executed brilliantly, and attempts to make its own rules, reasons, and rhetoric in an effort to stake claim on a project, rather than paying homage to it. There were several episodes of "MH" that were less than a minute in length, but still managed to deliver the heebie-jeebies, whereas this film is over 90 minutes long, and the only feeling of dread I experienced occured when I looked at my watch and realized there were still 75 minutes left.
Oh well, not even a poor attempt at extending what is one of the best FF experiences out there can poison my memories of old, afterall, the original is most times invariably better, and if others try to imitate, we the audience can't be scrutinized for always watching, that's on them.
Madness Meter: 3.5/10
NB
