neilgooge
It's OK, far from great, but far from terrible. I've definitely seen worse... You know... Like the other two...
saramgia
Not remotely scary, creative, thoughtful, original. Any school child could have made this. No script; just one man talking to himself or on the phone to "someone else." No special or visual effects.
Anissa Taylor
I hate found footage films as a rule of thumb, and if I review them it's either because they really suck or because I actually didn't mind them. This film falls into the latter category. I went into this film not knowing it was a solo film and a first venture, it was available on Prime and I was bored. I only found out the rest after, which made me extra impressed!This film is simple, the effects are (generally, there is one that stands out rather negatively, you'll know it when you see it) are subtle and pretty well done. The reason for all of the cameras is pretty solid, and it's not one of those over the top "And then I was PINNED IN THE CEILING BY AN UNSEEN FORCE!" type of things. It's refreshing in it's simplicity.While I wouldn't call it believable, the vast majority of this film feels more realistic than others of the genre and that's a nice touch. Although a bit more knowledge on the occult might have helped.Not perfect, not very scary, but still much better than a lot of found footage films of late.
Jacob Studebaker
--That perfectly sums up my feelings on this movie. As of late, I've been using Amazon Prime a lot more to watch movies such as Blue Ruin, Green Room, Swiss Army Man, and Henry to name a few. I've even decided to watch a few found footage movies as well because I hate myself. I've seen a mediocre one such as Hell House LLC and a "You tried" like Phoenix Tapes 97, but I found one movie so bad, so fundamentally BROKEN, I felt the need to actually write what's basically an essay on just WHY this film is so terrible. "Bad Ben" was released in 2016 and was directed by and starring Nigel Bach, a man I will refer to as "Neil Breen with a phone" because that's what this movie is: SHOT ON A PHONE. Now don't get me wrong, there's been a film shot on a phone before called Tangerine, and it wasn't too bad. But unlike Bad Ben, Tangerine used special lenses, editing, sound design, and an actual script to look and feel like a movie. Bad Ben was just done by one guy with a phone totally improvised and used a camera he put on a tripod on a chair in the corner to simulate the look of a security camera. How do I know he did this? Because I did the EXACT same thing in my Freshmen year film class. The film's plot is like any other found footage movie. Guy buys a house, house is haunted, he's skeptical about it, then BOO. SPOOKY STUFF HAPPENS. What sets this film apart from other found footage movies is there are long segments where the guy is just improvising about some weird thing he put there in advance. Not to mention the character is COMPLETELY unlikable. At one point he finds a grave in his backyard made up of stones, a cross, and a music box toy, but then proceeds to say "I'm selling that on eBay" and then picks up the toy and starts kicking the stones away. At the very beginning he even throws away a Bible and a cross! So now we have an unlikable character, a generic plot, and terrible cinematography. "Is the acting any good," I hear you ask. To which I reply with hysterical laughter. This guy really shouldn't quit his day job because he's terrible. He literally finds a pentagram, a broken cross, and an urn in his attic and he replies with "Oh boy. Not good." How about effects? Well, I'm only slightly impressed. For some effects I could tell "Oh, it's just his friends with strings" or "Oh, he reversed the footage/sped it up" but there was one part where someone's ashes were knocked over and the ghost, in real-time, writes out "Not your home" and at first I was actually trying to figure out the effect. But then I figured out they just used an app to mix layers so as they screen-recorded the footage they were writing the words in the app. So yes. Even for found footage this is an absolute train-wreck. There's a part where for three whole minutes he's just walking through the house turning on the cameras not saying anything and another part where he's just driving home and he says to himself two or three times "Yep. Just driving down a dark creepy road.""Bad Ben" is hands down one of the worst films I've ever seen. Painfully boring, unintentionally funny, terrible cinematography, and overall just BAD. It's so bad, you HAVE to watch it. Get a group of friends together so you can make fun of it as you watch it. Overall, I give "BAD BEN" a 1/10. It's so bad, you NEED to see it.
