*Please bare and patient with me as I work on developing a new way of doing reviews due to my health. It will be different for a little bit until I get the knack of the new format.
First let’s establish the fact that the film 616: Paranormal Incident is not a direct sequel to the 2011 film Paranormal Incident yes, they share a character that has the same name which is FBI agent Watts and it’s also true that these two films are produced by Marquis Productions as well as both being found footage movies but they really are truly lame. Director David Chirchirillo (Cheap Thrills [2013]) also worked as writer with Ian Ascher (Haunting of the Innocent [2014]) and received distribution from Uncork’d Entertainment for DVD and later took up residency on streaming platforms, such as Tubi.
Seccond FBI team
Often is a case where the found footage movie provides a false setup and here it’s now different as we actually get two false or fake sequences to start the movie with the first one is that we have a husband who sends his wife, Robin (Autumn Federici [6:66 PM [2017])), a DVD with a dire warning, then a hard cut to opening production company names. The second opening involves the characters of Roxy (Kylie Johnson) who is also trying to fall out of her dress and some schmuck named Duke (Cyrus Zoghi) they’re basically going to make an adult film inside of the haunted abandoned prison, by revealing T&A they venture into a room that looks like blood stains on the walls. Even if it was abandoned, would the blood still be there and they seem to be pretty fresh in color on those walls? No, for those who are unaware blood ages with time, becomes darker in color a paranormal and next a creature appears with another hard cut and start the actual movie.
However, what should be noted here, first of all the location itself does not look like an abandoned prison and it’s actually Linda Vista Hospital been used for Basement Jack [2009], Hazard Jack [2014], and Axe to Grind [2015].
The audience is then introduced to the Woodborrow Prison that once housed the criminal insane, although they know that the staff was much worse than the prisoners themselves and even alluding to the last Warden who tried to burn down the entire prison and kill everyone inside and Henson was then left abandoned now if that sounds a little familiar it’s part of the plot line to House on Haunted Hill the remake version from 1999. Then it became a paranormal hotspot; also bother backstory was provided that in the 1990s a team of FBI agents were tasked with investigating the property where they all went missing and now the present day the FBI assigned another team to go out to this location and see if they can figure out what happened to the previous team gathering evidence and with a series of charges demolish the entire building. The group is led by Agents Watts (Thomas Downey), Frost, Pepper and one named Pope (Josef Cannon (Helsing University [2015])) is outfitted with a high-tech rig that includes a camera to justify the POV found footage shots and that is for all the rest of the filming well someone in the crew has gone around the entire prison to set up a whole bunch of other cameras and their communication is going to be done through mic checks and other things as a explore the place on their own. It’s not in dual team format but through a series of boring hallways that are empty occasionally we’ve got the common wheelchair scenes very silent montages and plenty of filler, all this information is going to report back to some person sitting in a van with blank walls and a couple monitors it’s beyond uninteresting.
The surveillance lacking and the van isn’t believable, but the house techie guru Hooper (Trent Haaga (Slices [2008])). As the team begins to investigate they are confronted with personal demons as when they go into different rooms entering their own alternative realities some are a little creepy and others are downright silly in fact when they do fine evidence or just told to bag it or they watch it burn up in front of them and then just give a shrug of the shoulders and walk along to them it’s no big deal.
A Ghost? Demon? Spooky…
Come in Child form too
One of the personnel Dr. Gwen Decker (Jennefer Ludwigsen (Dark Image [2017])) discovers a woman, Emma (Eve Mauro (Wicked Lake [2008])) who appears to be possessed in a lower-level prison cell the FBI agents who are parapsychologists make a weird line of salt on the ground to prevent the evil spirit from crossing over and invading their humanity.
One wonders if that salt is standard issue FBI government surplus.
Character Emma
There’s quite a bit about the film that doesn’t make any sense so let’s dive into those aspects when you watch this movie you’ll recall that there’s a DVD that gets mailed to the wife. This scene is a POV never clearly shows who’s looking through the bushes at her let’s continue on this DVD aspect never shown it actually made though it’s the same lead FBI agent in that earlier scene, that was from footage seen wearing the hat or the hoodie oops a continuity issue. A very important part here the actors are completely unconvincing as the characters of FBI agents the dialogue is often empty thoughts you have one character who acts as a chauvinist jerk a true ass, Freeman (Rib Hills) and his comments are peppered with sexism, a modern-day FBI team not tolerated he would have found himself thrown out of the bureau the behavior is ridiculous, clearly directed to the adolescent audience. We are informed that this location is supposed to be in Portland, OR but there are tall palm trees in the background this doesn’t work again then there’s even an epilogue card that states the movie was a recreation made from declassified government footage. Really? The found footage concept is floundering horrifically so you throw this little element in at the end to try to justify everything else because you realize the production values and the stage acting just weren’t going to pass. Now we learn the woman in the prison cell is the Devil Himself or herself depending on how you look upon it and they’re in the abandoned prison waiting for discovery. Huh? She has the power to fling people off to the side, burst open doors, pretty much do anything she wants yet we’re left with the devil just decided “well you know I’m doing nothing so I’ll just hang out here and wait to see if someone comes by to see me.” It doesn’t make any sense the devil decides to possess a woman in an abandoned prison and never go anywhere why the devil why not just a demon I can see a demon hanging out for an ungodly amount of time but the devil that doesn’t make any sense. No let’s talk about an interesting character backstory Gwen one of the paranormal psychiatrists gives the story of Emma the devil in a weird way and some of this is easy to just look up on Google if you wanted to do this there’s a lot of other ways to develop a backstory that could seem a big creepy if you just put a little time and effort into it so then again this is a found footage movie based off of government records and this is what they came up with you’re going to love this. They attempted to use the Titanic manifest that in room 616 Emma stayed and then she was the 616th survivor on the list quick note neither one of these things these things is true next on April 26th of 1986 at 1:23 am the Chernobyl disaster test occurred now you see how they get that 616 well they’re taking the six at the end of 1986 the one and then they’re taking two times three as another six, then switches the timeline back to 1971 616 homes were destroyed with an earthquake to San Bernardin, California and in 1984 616 Birds fell dead out of the sky near Los Alamos Mexico and also on October 13,1977 I love how we’re going up and dates and suddenly dropped all the way back to ’77 that 616 people committed suicide in Vermont before stating that on June 16th of 1692 Emma was found guilty of being a witch drowned hung and then burned at the stake in Salem. There’s a big problem not only is half this information wrong, but nobody was burned at any stake in Salem, MA. it did not happen I know it establishes a great visual image in one’s mind. In addition, let’s note something else on the IMDb credits the character Frost who is played by Vai Tiare isn’t listed that’s really strange perhaps she decided to remove it from their credit list. Lastly, the devil is completely devoid of any frightening qualities, while the set is extremely clean, freshly painted and actually you could tell has perfect furniture used for something else.
The found footage genre is starting to wane greatly as the films are often very forgettable to the reviewers and may start to find themselves more irritated by the concepts that are being put forth this is probably due a series of poorly created and even boring storylines. It is often stated that location, location, location is what sells a film for when you’re using a lot of found footage however here is a poor location usage showing the film is now having to rely on other aspects because they cannot resort to destroying the location in any way shape or form this basically leads to a sleepy production. A boring aspect simply stated this movie which did at one time hold a title reference of 666 Paranormal Prison was trying to duplicate the efforts of a superior movie called Grave Encounters [2011].
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2676710/
IMDb Rating: 2.8/10
Baron’s Rating: 2.0/10