{"id":45257,"date":"2024-10-15T01:02:55","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T05:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=45257"},"modified":"2024-10-15T01:02:55","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T05:02:55","slug":"puzzle-box-2023-halloween-horror-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/15\/puzzle-box-2023-halloween-horror-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Puzzle Box (2023) [Halloween Horror Month]\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Available now from Welcome Villain Films\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A woman with addiction issues is heading to a rented house with her sister who will help her get clean and film the process. Once they arrive, they find two identical houses on the property and things get weirder and weirder from there. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Written and directed by Jack Dignan, this found footage movie falls completely flat. The story here has very little to offer while the direction makes the film look and feel like a thousand other found footage film served to the public on lukewarm leftover platters. This may sound mean, but there was nothing here beyond the mystery of the two identical houses to keep the attention. It\u2019s a lot of not much going on, sisters arguing, and shaky camera work. This is what non-fans of found footage run away from like the plague. The story is thin, the characters one-dimensional, and the resulting film boring as can be with a few rare ideas that kind of work but not enough to make the film worth watching. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The cast here is small and mostly lesser known to unknown. The lead, playing Kait, the addict trying to kick her addiction,\u00a0is Kaitlyn Boy\u00e9 who gives as good of a performance as could be expected. Playing the sister Olivia is Laneikka Denne who also does decent work with the material. We do not get to see their performances all that well though, so it\u2019s difficult to figure if they are good or just seemingly good. The rest of the cast works ok for their few scenes, the film giving them minimal material to work with.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In terms of cinematography, this is the kind of found footage that makes you regret watching it. The camera is a phone and it\u2019s constantly moving, basically giving viewer zero chance to see what is going on properly. The lighting is lacking (as shown in the photos) with a few events lit up better here and there but the majority of the film is spent in the dark. Yes, that is a style but come on, it\u2019s gotten old as soon as The Blair Witch was done with its theatrical run. So many films go for this look and this way of creating the found footage effect, but it\u2019s old, it\u2019s overdone, and it makes the film hard to watch.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Overall, Puzzle Box is a frustrating watch where the film seems to do everything to alienate the audience, not letting them see what is going on, giving them nausea from the camera\u2019s constant motion, and just not giving a flying squirrel about the story. There is a story here, but it is incredibly thin, leaving the viewer to make up their own story while they wait for something more interesting to happen. The cast seems to be trying to their best to make this into something, but when the bones are weak, there isn\u2019t much the cast can do to save the film. \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Available now from Welcome Villain Films\u00a0 A woman with addiction issues is heading to a rented house with her sister who will help her get clean and film the process. Once they arrive, they find two identical houses on the property and things get weirder and weirder from there. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[370,477],"class_list":["post-45257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halloween-horror-month","category-movie-reviews","tag-found-footage","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45258,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45257\/revisions\/45258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}