Jaden Jordan
- Aug 18, 2019
- 2 min read

Exhibit A (2007)

Updated: Aug 3, 2021

The Breakdown: Financial strain sends a normal family down a dark path.

Watch If: You prefer your horror more 'realistic.'

Not If: The idea of sitting through an hour and a half of home videos sounds like pulling teeth.

SECONDARY FACTS

Overall Rating: 2.8

Length: 1:25

Country: UK

Language: English

Scare Factor: 2/5

Gore Factor: 1/5

REVIEW

THE QUICK AND DIRTY

Exhibit A is fine in the most noncommittal sense of the word. I've seen worse, but it certainly wasn't good.. The 'home video' style is difficult to get through, but convincingly done.

PREMISE:2

I spent this entire film waiting for an ironic twist, or some strange additive that painted this film in a whole new light, or offered some brilliant nuance to its otherwise overwhelming banality. But it never comes. This film is exactly what it is on the surface. There's no deep abstraction, it's just home videos gone wrong. It does well in that premise, but it really, manages to feel lackluster by the end of it.

ACTING:3

The acting in Exhibit A is exactly what it needs to be. It is good enough to let the viewer drift off into the world of the film without any real need to suspend disbelief. No Oscars are going to come from it, but i feel like if the acting were too much better, it would take away from any realism the film manages to grab onto.

AUDIO AND VISUALS:3

The aspects of this film that are the most annoying and also the facets that make it more realistic than a lot of found footage films. For example, everyone in the King family is constantly shouting. The dreary saturation really sells the desperation that winds around the film as it progresses. It's not phenomenal, it's not groundbreaking, but it is a solid film.

ATMOSPHERE:3

It's a painfully slow burn, but it does burn. It does progress, and if you make it past the first bout of annoyance with the characters, there is a story here, and once you're in it, it either hooks you or it doesn't: there doesn't seem to be any in-between. Either you care about the story, or you don't, and if you don't, save yourself the time.

DELIVERY:3

It's not amazing, but it's fine. It does a good job at being what it set out to be. All of the elements of a decent found footage are there, and it's more realistic than most of its sub-genre, but there's just something missing. There's something passive about it, that leaves the viewer passive by the end of it.