Bad Movie Club: The Lock In

2014 Christian found-footage horror movie

Bad Movie Rating: 4/5 (J.D.: 5/5; Josh: 4/5)

Rating: 3/20

Plot: A trio of teenagers discover the dangers of filthy magazines when they sneak one into a church lock-in and somehow unleash a demon.

Christian found-footage horror movie. Just let that sink in for a bit. Are you automatically expecting something really embarrassing and terrible, because if you are, I'd like to remind you of Matthew 7:1: "Judge not lest ye be judged." Because maybe you're the one who is embarrassing and terrible.

No, you'd actually be right. This is exactly what you would think a Christian found-footage horror movie about the dangers of dirty magazines would be. I'm too lazy to put any research into this, but I'm fairly positive this is funded by a Baptist church, and if you add "church-funded" to the "Christian found-footage horror movie about the dangers of dirty magazines," it makes it sound even worse, right?

What's the one thing that could automatically kill a found-footage horror film or mockumentary? Bad acting, right? Well, this is filled with bad acting from the top of the credits to the bottom with the exception of a little demon kid who pops in and doesn't have any lines. It's hard to give a performance that is bad enough to stand out in a sea of bad performances, but the kid who plays Justin in this manages to do it. He's mostly behind the camera, only adding his occasional voice to the story. It's when we finally get to see him that we understand why they chose to keep him off-screen as much as possible. He's terrible. He can't even sit and do nothing in a way that seems realistic, and when he's given other things to do--like engage in a conversation or try to expel a demon by yelling about Jesus and gesticulating wildly or nearly drowning in a baptismal--he's even worse. I was actually embarrassed for his entire family, and if he gets to the pearly gates and sees Peter pull out a dvd copy of this movie, he should probably be worried.

Attempts to ape Blair Witch are obvious here, and I thought this was going to end a little like The Blair Witch Project did. The filmmakers (Rich Praytor who directed and played, I'm guessing, the pastor and Beverly Banks who wrote and played, I'm guessing, the mother who prays for her son to keep his trap door closed in one of the most wonderful movie prayers you're likely to ever experience) fooled me though, throwing in a twist that really doesn't make much sense followed by another twist that makes even less sense and a final twist that brought on stigmata and ruined one of my favorite shirts. The film ineptly combines footage the kid is shooting with surveillance camera footage into something that was supposedly whittled down so that the elders could know what happened. I'm not sure why that was necessary since all the elders are really going to discover is. . .

Well, I can't share that. It would spoil one of the movie's twists, and I wouldn't want to do that.

"Father, help Nicky keep his trapdoor shut." I swear a line very similar to that is in this movie. What part of a male adolescent's anatomy would be the trapdoor?

As you might expect for a church-funded movie, there are some impressive special effects. We get to see an invisible demon opening a door, for example. That or somebody was able to push the handicap button without being in the shot. There's a demon-possessed trashcan that flies across a hallway. That was pretty solid. There was a window that wouldn't break no matter how hard that kid swung a chair at it. Maybe that would fall into the "great pantomime" category more than "great special effects" one. The creepy demon kid doesn't look too bad actually, but I think it was the sound effect used that helped that moment work.

Two more favorite moments:

1) An impromptu scene where the trio of boys make puppets of themselves out of cups, presumably to try to forget that all of their friends are dead and that a demon is likely to get them, too. Because that makes total sense.

2) A guy walking into the shot by mistake during the big baptismal drowning sequence.

This is on YouTube if you'd like to endure it and discover for yourself how pornography (well, dirty magazines) can get all of your friends killed and make preachers turn to selling insurance. It's the best argument I've ever seen to keep my trapdoor shut.