..but all the shorts had a found footage element to them.
Not that anyone really cares.. but since there were no tapes in this one (like part 1 and 2) there was no "rule" for it to be all 100% found footage. That's why some of the shorts cheat here and there, which is great because found footage gives me a headache, lol.
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That's not an excuse. The other two movies have that as well. The first and second both had VHS tapes being played before the film. This was just pure "the Hell with the rules!" by the filmmakers. Instead of building a story around found footage they just "adapted" their own stories and used the franchise as a way too (poorly) show them.
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Get off it. It's not about "taking chances" or "not taking chances" - this is akin to asking several directors to make claymation shorts, but then they're like "mmmm, nah - you know what I'm going to make a puppet show". The franchise is based on found footage - whether it's on VHS tapes or digital... FOUND F'N FOOTAGE. So you can't just decide, hey - let's just film this one part in a traditional way because we can't think of a good way to integrate a key element of this franchise. Pay me! Pay me! Who gives a *beep*
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"I...declare...BANKRUPTCYYYYYYY!!!"
I wholeheartedly disagree. Viral actually builds logically upon the first two films.
In the first two films we discover that there are these collections of disturbing videos, the viewing of which has supernatural consequences (e.g. their collectors coming back from the dead). We see what are apparently parts of two separate collections in the first two films with owners who come back to life while their collections are being viewed. The owners seem to get power from their collection and from having people view their collections. We are never told how this footage is found or by whom -- particularly when in some cases it would seem to be quite dangerous to get the videos (like, e.g., by entering "Haven" and grabbing some of the tapes lying in rooms past other rooms with demon possessed people, or by entering woods occupied by an invisible time-distorting killer). Yes, the TV interviews about the magician could have easily been taped off the TV, but not the majority of that segment. This suggests to me that the creation of the collections is somewhat inexplicable even in the first two films, and must be supernatural in origin as well as in effect. And it is easily assumed that there are many videos we haven't seen in the first two films. Either these collections had supernatural agency to begin with, or developed it later, and became these self-perptuating things.
What we see in the third film are two things: 1) Disturbing footage that is presumably part of the same collection or collections of a similar nature, and 2) (the framing sequence) additional films of the same nature during the very stages of their creation. Why is the icecream truck driving in circles? To give all these people the opportunity to film it and view it, thereby adding to the collection and its power. We see others near the route of the icecream truck wind up making videos that aren't directly about the chase: The girl getting revenge against the ex-girlfriend sex tape site, the slaughter at the BBQ, etc. Whatever power is behind the collections we see in the first two films is growing in power as the amount of disturbing footage and the number of viewers it obtains increases. We see via the smartphones how easy it is for these films to be created and spread. The fact that the truck wants its footage uploaded (to go viral) makes it obvious that whatever force is behind it wants viewers and wants more footage. It's hardly a new concept. The Ring wanted viewers. The Blair Witch left tapes where they would be found and viewed and attract new victims.
Now I'd only be surprised if there is another "VHS" movie when this force has learned to evolve past old-fashioned videotape and go digital.
It absolutely is the resolution of a weak conceit:
No VHS.
No viral element.
No central theme.
A declining level of effort.
Perhaps the flimsiest wrap-around of three wrap-arounds, across three really terrible anthologies.
Your wall of text is silly. The magician was an effects demo (the stage fight) that was turned into a segment. The entire segment turns on an inexplicable action sequence that does not belong in this anthology...because it's impossible...even forgiving the weak excuse of telekinetically driven cameras. It's by far the dumbest and most poorly conceptualized of all the segments. But it's pretty obvious it was never a segment, and simply an effects demo that tried to shoe-horn in a plot around itself.
Impossible, with all the broadcasting cameras lying around? It wasn't the best of segments, but remove the magician vs magician bit (which would have been better if handled with subtlety after the bloody raid), and everything was built around footage that wasn't at all contrived. Remove even the raid, and it was a very workable short story. Which belies the notion it was necessarily only to sustain the fx action sequence.
Sorry if some explanations cannot be summed up in a pithy poster soundbite and sentence fragments, but as I point out: Yes, evolution from VHS/analog to digital/wifi, and Yes, viral element (one so obvious you lose any credibility by claiming the contrary). What's silly is someone griping about how terrible (not even "weak", but "terrible") a series is after watching all three.
Explain to me the logistics of the camera shots, and the reasoning of the magician for making them, when he himself was unaware of the cameras he was directing.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but that was not a conceit within the original 'stage fight' demo, which is why it doesn't work. The timeline also doesn't work, and it makes no sense as a recording of a character expose'.
It's pretty retarded on strictly mechanical levels in the conceit, plot, fiction department. It doesn't know what it's doing. It's an all round mess of editing, story-telling, and attempting to force a square into a circular hole and coming up with a triangle instead.
I found the plot rather simple and straightforward.
The only videos that the magician made himself were either the ones where he was practising his tricks (for study, with the camera playing the role of the audience) or grew out of that habit. The rest were from other sources. You might question why he kept all those videos, but he was particularly full of himself under the influence of the cape, and we do live in a world where the "selfie-stick" exists. Not every explanation has to be profound.
Actually... That makes a lot of sense and it also helps to see the film in a new light. I really didn't like this part, but I like your theory (specially to wrap around the BBQ massacre and the revenge in the cab).
Thanks :)
We see via the smartphones how easy it is for these films to be created and spread
Yes!!! I've discovered this upon my second viewing.
shareFound footage doesn't have to be tape. It just has to be footage.
shareIt certainly worked for me! I loved the segments and the use of the format.
There was never a rule that said that the entire film had to be found footage.
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There was never a rule that said that the entire film had to be found footage.
Nope. That was the whole premise of part 1 and 2, not 3.
shareAnd 3.
shareNope. Just 1 and 2.
shareProof?
sharePart 1 and 2 literally put in VHS tapes into a VCR and implied what we were watching was from those tapes! Part 3 did not. Part 3 is a whole new thing. A hybrid of formats. Found footage elements, but not necessarily all found footage, obviously.
shareIt's not implying anything, it's directly saying that.
Only one segment did that "hybrid", if all segments did it you would maybe have a point, but since they're not doing it it's a plot hole and shouldn't be justified in any way.
True, you are right. Putting a tape in IS directly saying that. :)
There are several places throughout the movie that are questionable who (if anyone) is filming and/or recording. Regardless, it's an anthology with unconnected different shorts put together, not a coherent straight narrative (none of these movies are).
It's not a "plot hole" as you call it, it wasn't done as a mistake.. It was obviously done intentionally. It was justified because there are no tapes.
We might have to agree to disagree on this one svalinanikola. lol
This is such apologist nonsense. The whole basis for the franchise is being found footage.
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And for found footage to be found footage, it has to be "found". Implying someone was there to shoot it on a camcorder or their smartphone. So how were they getting shots of the giant magician fight? Or shots from the POV of the skateboards where there clearly was no camera mounted?
FFS - this movie was sh*t.
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"I...declare...BANKRUPTCYYYYYYY!!!"
yeah and "final destination 4" was actually more like a very corny remake of itself based on all its previous parts and titled "the final destination", throwing in "episodes" like "idiotic white supremacist drags black man behind car only to get bizarre comeuppance". get over it. this is how it works. if you want perfect consistency, try kraft products.
shareit didnt need actual vhs tapes to be good. just actual directing and direction. if i were doing a viral motif id do it like this:
a mysterious "video" pops up on social media (the same way something like "friday" or gangnam style blew up because of social media). the story then focuses on other characters that click the link and the video launches into the videos that we will see. its not always the same video, it makes you see some random horrible event and at the end it forces the viewer to share the link and spread the "virus". the video is slowly turning the whole world into the thing the kid was at the end of vhs 2, and ends in the culmination that vhs 1, 2 and viral served as a way for whatever forces are behind the tapes/events to come into our world.
thats just one way they couldve made the movie a thousand times more coherent. viral as it is, is just sloppy.
You should have directed it!! lol your idea sounds amazing! The movie in no way had anything to do with the title "Viral"
shareThe framing sequence spells it out, actually. You have all these guys (the kids on the bike, the guy who taped his girlfriend) following this truck because they want to make viral videos. The truck is accommodating by driving around in a circuitous route (so people can catch up to it and film it as it comes around again), because it wants to go viral. We see it gaining power as more and more people start to watch it on their mobiles. And we see the protagonist of the framing sequence further help it go viral (and thus achieve extreme power) by uploading the videos so they can become viral (cleverly enough, using analog equipment all duct taped and jerry-rigged together). It is all about its evolution, from being restricted to analog VHS to a better carrier -- digital technolgoy.
shareThere's a hint in the first movie that this started out on film. Look carefully in the basement scene in part 1. When that one guy is sitting down looking through the tapes and ordering the other guy around. There are a few film canisters mixed in with those tapes. It's possible that many of the shorts in those vhs tapes were at one point on film and transferred to vhs. In part two, that one guy was trying to transfer the tapes onto his computer/laptop/whatever in a certain order. Of course later on all these video start to get transferred online. It would be cool if they made a prequel that would give some backstory as to what is going on. Especially as a wrap around story.
shareinteresting.
shareI don't think that should be used as evidence, they just wanted to give you the feel of putting the vhs tape and getting that stuff.
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