You know what I think I would’ve opted out of that crime scene field trip as the defendant.

A mixed bag with some worthwhile changes if not outright improvements.

Going from:
setup --> punchline
to
setup --> muted punchline --> 15 more minutes

...is rough. But at the core is a solid horror story that's fun to slightly twist and insert great actors into. 2024 has had some baffling horror scripts so this was weirdly refreshing.

Can we put things like this straight onto Disney+ in the future? The characters are likable, the jokes are fine, and Gyllenhaal makes a worthwhile if half-baked villain. But it's wild to have audiences come to the theater for a story with such a flimsy character arc for its hero, which still leans heavily on a dead character's presence, whose most exciting moment comes in a post-credits set-up from a side character in a different edition of the franchise. I'm not sure if I saw a movie or 130 minutes of references to other movies.

Becoming a fun subgenre to compare — moreso than typical found footage horror there’s the sense that there’s a formula to crack and a somewhat higher floor. This isn’t it though, as a short it’s a good time but didn’t really ground itself enough to make the escalation work as it pushes towards feature length.