The Trailer:
Director: Zachary Donahue
Main Cast: Melanie Papalia
Plot Summary: Elizabeth Benton (Melanie Papalia), a woman studying the habits of web cam chat room users, witnesses an alleged murder online and subsequently places herself in the cross-hairs of anonymous web users.
I seem to recall a Criminal Minds episode with a similar concept. I won't indulge y'all in the concept, though, as it would ruin the "twist" of this movie. Anyways, I know that there is a niche of viewers who would enjoy a movie like this, but I am just not one of them. The format is similar to most found footage films of late, except not as shaky due to the camera being a web cam and not a handheld camera. I'll explain a little later why I don't particularly like this format either. Also, I wasn't entirely entertained by the actual story either. But aside from those, I think The Den has a good concept, good acting, and a certain sense of originality in style (which I'm not sure if I like or not).
Let's start with the good. The concept of The Den is great: being cyber-stalked and terrorized is terrifying. The internet is so vast and easily manipulated by hackers that it makes it near impossible to track down these internet abusers. The internet, though it feels like it's been around forever, is still fairly young, and with it being so young and new, there is little knowledge of how to control it and keep it safe. Even with all the cyber-laws that have been passed recently, there is still a little something called the Dark web, where literally any terrible thing you can imagine is being bought and sold and shared. To even think about all theses terrible things is overwhelmingly stomach churning. So the fact that this movie is a venture into the dark corners of the world wide web and what can happen when you become involved in it is scary in itself. However, a good concept does not a good movie make.
The acting. So there are a slew of actors in The Den in order to make the whole video chat room believable. And while there are a few secondary characters who spend more than five minutes on screen altogether who do a decent job, the shining star of this movie is Melanie Papalia. Since this is kind of found footage-y, the actions and reactions of Elizabeth have to appear and feel real enough that we can suspend our disbelief into believing it is real. And Papalia does an amazing job at creating and portraying a character that is easily believable. Not only can she appear as though she is genuinely afraid, she also makes the most idiotic decisions out of her heightened emotional state with such pure conviction that it has to be real, you know? Suffice to say, I was impressed by Melanie Papalia's acting and her ability to bring the character of Elizabeth Benton to life.
While I am aware of other films that chronicle the horrors and hazards of internet use, I appreciate that the writers, while staying true to other cautionary tales of this sort, went a little bit further so as to highlight our complete dependence on the internet. The fact that The Den takes the time to show how easily the internet can be used for terror, and without consequence because of how hard it is to track these things, is enough to demonstrate how the internet has completely overtaken the world. But also, the fact that the writers and directors chose to showcase the accessibility of all kinds of things on the internet is just as important at showing how we've succumbed to the ease of the internet. I mean, we're talking about the deepest, darkest, immoral fantasies and desires of people throughout the world being accessed with a click of a button, that is truly frightening! Further, this isn't like other found footage films where a group of friends go on some adventure or whatever and end up, unrealistically, carting around a hand-held camera for the entirety of the film which leads to shaky, pixelated footage. No, The Den's footage is all shot through a web cam, and sometimes the camera of a phone, which for me is better than shaky, can't-really-see footage but is still not my favorite format to view a movie.
Because of it mostly being shot through a laptop's webcam, we only see what the laptop's camera sees. There are moments where our characters go completely out of frame and we can only hear what they're saying/doing, which honestly is kind of annoying. Granted, there aren't too many scenes like that, but it's still a nuisance. Also, of course, there is unsteady footage from when Elizabeth is running around with her phone with the camera on, which is beyond annoying and dizzying. Like, really how can anybody watch that? Doesn't it make you dizzy or nauseous?(By the way, what reason would she have to have her camera on during these parts? She could have easily just used the light on her phone if she needed a flashlight. But of course, for the sake of the movie she needs to use her camera). Furthermore, because of the movie being filmed, for the majority, through her laptop webcam there is just too many scenes of Elizabeth's face. I know that may sound weird, because while she is an attractive woman, I don't want to spend an hour and a half of just looking at her face react to the various things she's witnessing. It gets a little boring after a while seeing her laugh at a ridiculous penis puppet video. Yes, there are various scenes that contain a penis puppet video, which aren't even funny.
Now for the story and, more importantly, the actions of our protagonist. The story of this woman studying the habits of video chat room users and then being terrorized by some anonymous group is okay, but when it comes to her not doing anything to distance herself from it is where the story gets silly. Like seriously, after you've witnessed a possible murder, you still don't end the study? After you've been hacked and are being terrorized by some anonymous group, you still don't stop going on the chat room? No, instead you just go deeper and deeper into the weird shit of the internet and end up burying yourself in it without any way out. That is completely ridiculous. Like come on, man! You see how fucking insane this shit is getting and you still keep going back to the site to Sherlock Holmes your way into finding your boyfriend? And the worst offense is how she cut off the one person who could help her: her friend who is some kind of amateur, hobbyist hacker. Like are you dumb? Out of all the weirdos and people who you interact with, you choose to stop talking to guy who's trying to help you just because you don't like what he's advising you to do? Girl, bye! Overall I was annoyed with her character, through and through. Every decision she made was stupid and completely ludicrous. Believable, but insanely stupid.
In the end, The Den itself isn't very scary. The thoughts and ideas that it conjures up is terrifying. To think that things like this are actually happening is enough to make me not want to use the internet for forever. (Because with all the terrors of the dark web, I'm sure this film doesn't stray too far from reality) But funny enough, look at me still using the internet. Anyways, it's a decent movie. Not memorable, but not terrible. Would I watch it again, though? Probably not.
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