More Idiots Pissing Off Ghosts

The Presence is German found-footage poltergeist film that suffers for a particularly egregious form of something that comes up a lot in these movies. The character, usually a guy, who  insists on continuing with what they're doing in the face because he's got things under control, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

Markus makes a couple of errors right off, as he's told his girlfriend Rebecca this is some special trip, and then it turns out they're spending 10 days in an abandoned castle where lots of murders took place, and he brought along his irritating friend Lukas. This in spite of Rebecca not liking scary stuff at all, which Markus at least plays surprised at*.

As things do, they start off slow. Shadows moving, the camera glitching (which becomes shorthand for the presence). Then there's loud pounding coming from the attic with no visible source. Doors opening and closing. Rebecca is growing increasingly unnerved, especially when it appears the presence is targeting her. At one point, she's brushing her teeth after a rough night, and as Markus jokes about whether he can record her in the shower, the spirit starts opening and slamming the bathroom door in his face and briefly trapping her inside. Which scares the crap out of her.

This is the point where a reasonable, compassionate human being, recognizing, if not the fact they are out of their depth, at least that their girlfriend, who they allegedly care about, is seriously frightened and uncomfortable. And would therefore take that person home. Markus is not a reasonable, compassionate human being. It doesn't help that even as Lukas suspects Rebecca is, I don't know, faking being possessed. Like she's taking their camera out into the woods at night, in her bare feet, in winter, and just leaving it at the grave marker of the former lord of the castle, as a joke or something. And Markus, when he finds her in the woods and brings her back to a room with all the pictures turned around, their stuff scattered, accuses Lukas.

The thing about Zombieland was it was a movie about a zombie apocalypse in a world where movies about that existed, so people knew what were stupid things to do. They might still do those stupid things, but there was usually an in-story reason, like they were distraught or trying to rescue a friend. These kinds of movies always seem to be in universes where no one has seen Paranormal Activity, or Poltergeist, or whatever. I guess because, if they had, they would just get out of the house immediately, and that would be that (with a worldwide zombie apocalypse, you're somewhat limited in where you can run). But it doesn't make massively stupid behavior any less irritating.

There's also a sequence where Markus and Lukas are watching the footage on their laptop, and then start arguing, missing the moment where the image on-screen changes to show them arguing, and that the Markus on-screen turns to look out at us. I will give credit, that kind of stuff always works on me as unnerving. Or when they do stuff with people's reflections, which this movie also uses a few times. It's just one of those things you know is wrong. The fact that the camera's will always start glitching when the spirit is near reduces the effectiveness, though. It acts like a warning to be ready for some surprise, which makes a less effective surprise.

* I was reminded of that scene in Iron Man 2, when Tony brings Pepper the strawberries, and she points out that is the one thing she's allergic to. Tony tries to play it off that at least he knew strawberries were important.