The Den. Like Chatroulette, but with less demands for nudity.

BOYFRIEND I THINK

If it was that bad, maybe you should get off the site. 

WHATEVER THE MAIN GIRLS NAME IS

I'm not just gonna give up on the study, the school gave me a lot of money to do this, i can't just tell them i changed by mind.

BOYFRIEND I THINK

I don't know what you want me to say, it's the internet, you should have expected something like this.

Ever hear of the movie "The Den"? No? You haven't? But Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 80%! I.... I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it. It's on Netflix, but it's like deep in Netflix crap. Deep crap.

Originally released in Russia as Death Online (which is how this specific movie landed on my radar. I hear Russian horror movies, and I get all giddy. They'll eventually release a NightWatch/DayWatch 3, just keep waiting).

So remember in the early 200000s when omegle and chatroulette sites were all the rage? Remember how now they're not, and now everyone has [INSERT CURRENT TREND HERE] and [ADDITIONAL CURRENT TREND HERE] instead? (I'll stay topical forever dammit). Hey this movie remembers!

It's a found footage film, and the main character dies in the end. (Screw spoilers, you won't watch it).

Girl gets a school grant to do research on the people you meet on video chat. She witnesses a murder and investigates it. With sexy results.

Wait no, murderous results. 

Here's an additional list of things I didn't like from the movie.

• You're on a random cam site, and you ran across >1 penis. Yeah OK.
• The main girl has a guy on the side that looks and sounds identical to the boyfriend. I'm confused by that.
• Her Sociology professor board consisted of three old white guys and one sassy younger black girl. COME ON NOW.
• There were multiple dogs shown in the movie, yet none of the dogs had starring roles.
• She mentions she got take out, a few times, but we never see the takeout, nor does she use a proper noun in reference to the takeout. Movies do this constantly "hey guys, I brought some dinner and some refreshments in a satchel!". No. I want to know what you're eating, because you're boring me movie.
• The main girl looks foreign, and her sister doesn't, what's with that. 
• Multiple times throughout the movie it shows someones computer screen, not a single one of those screens had multiple tabs of porn open. Completely unrealistic.
• Her desktop. Ok so having a few folders on the desktop, fine. But her's are like sporadically scattered across the cloud wallpaper. I couldn't even be bothered to find a picture. Why that's annoying? She makes her bed every damn morning. Not only have you killed a stranger on the internet, but you've killed my trust in character development. Killed

The found footage medium so rarely works because it completely relies on the story and atmosphere to get anywhere. No real settings, just ambience and the reliable "did something just move in the darkly lit area, SOMETHING DID MOVE? OH GOODNESS, WHAT MOVED".

Found footage medium wouldn't work anywhere else, not in books or audio, because (well yes aside from the fact that it's footage), but also because you only get snippets of a story. One minute they're in the woods, one minute they're at home, but you're only seeing what they "see". Make a found footage movie from the aspect of a bookshelf in a spare bedroom or something, something interesting. You get 45 minutes of silence and then the occasional yelling.

Oh what? That would be too boring? Because the hour and a half I wasted on The Den was absolutely more interesting..... yeah, think about that.

For this medium to work, I need a few things. I need to feel empathy for the main character, I need either much more detail, or significantly less detail. Let me know every single thing about the character and how they got to where they are OR tell me nothing and let my mind fill in the blanks. 

If within the first 20 minutes of the movie, I see that she's cheating (or maybe not? idek), I immediately stop giving a shits about what might happen to her. Especially when she's mean to her boyfriend. But Doug, you don't know what the boyfriend did, maybe he was horrible to her?? NOPE. That's where you're wrong, I don't know what he did, I only know what the movie tells me, and the movie tells me she's cheating. 

You can infer it from her interaction with her boyfriend that he fucked up somewhere in the past? I see, so now you're essentially wanting me to create backstory where there is none. This all is the work of the author, not the viewer. Since the movie decided to give me some backstory, that's what I have to work with. Hell, from what they've given me, I can assume she's some horrible sadistic child murderer on the flee from the law and pretending to be a grad student somewhere.

Long story short, I should feel something for your main character if you want me to continue. If I, as the viewer, am not given the information as to why I should care for her, I'm not going to be vested in the story. She dies, and I think "well, the fucking way she goes boys". 

Overall the movie could have been a short story. Or it could have been a terrible sequel to feardotcom (which has an adorable wiki page here . This article has multiple issues indeed wikipedia).

All in all, it's a terribly written, acted, and designed movie. But as is my nature to marathon through them, complain loudly to a cat about them, then blog them. It's my calling.

Oh, it's also called The Den because that's the name of the website. There were no showing of dens, snugs, rumpus rooms, man caves, offices, home libraries, or computer rooms. Way to go movie. 

Also also, that bit of dialogue up top perfectly displays what was wrong with this movie. It was released as a video on demand film, ironic.

And finally, I wrote this entire blog while listening to the Heat soundtrack.