Student Emma (Ashley Benson) has just moved to New York City to start afresh after a recent break-up, but little does she know that a stalker is watching her every move by hacking into the technology that she uses on a daily basis, her laptop, her mobile phone and other web-connected devices, but very soon, watching her isn’t enough and things take a terrifying turn for the worst.
This for me is a pretty unique and strangely worrying take on the how technology today could come back to haunt us. Now I’m not too sure if what happens in this movie is actually possible, but I have to confess every time I download and app and it asks for several permissions, one of which inevitably being ‘access to your phone’s camera’, I usually just agree and press ahead with the download.
The entirety of this movie is viewed from the eyes of the stalker and via any camera Emma happens to be using at that time, as you can guess, it is usually her laptop and her mobile phone which scarily at least one of them seems to be in in use at one time or another, which is again something that hit home personally in relation to my device usage.
So the movie plays out in the usual way, following Emma on everyday activities, going to school, exercising in her apartment, going out clubbing and having her recently acquired New York based boyfriend over to spend the night, all activities that our voyeur seems to enjoy watching, sometimes taking a picture of and other times rewinding to re-watch at his leisure. Throughout the 83 minute runtime, there is a certain Paranormal Activity feel about the movie, the interrupted, although not too often it is nauseating cam-view, the loud banging on the door, but with no one is there and more so where a mysterious shadow or shape, seems to enter Emma’s apartment on numerous occasions just to look at her and even in one instance, lay with her while she sleeps!?
The last act of the move is where things ramp up, the accusing phone-call to the ex-boyfriend, the new boyfriend being threatened via e-mail, how else, unless he stays away as well as her newly acquired cat being left for dead, it soon becomes all too much and Emma decides it’s time to move back to Wisconsin., will she make it? I’ll let you find out.
This movie is definitely an acquired taste and instead of being a horror, on reflection, has the feel of a documentary about society’s reliance on technology. For me this movie does two things, one, it has left me with a lingering sense of ‘I wonder IF there is anyone watching me on the other end of my phone’s camera?’ and two, it has ensured that I will always check the small print prior to any future app purchase!