Review: Ratter

University student Ashley Benson has moved into a new apartment in a new city. She’s just out of a not-so great relationship, and is tentatively beginning a new one with nice guy Matt McGorry. What she doesn’t know, but eventually will come to realise, is that someone has hacked into her technological devices, including gaining access to her email and laptop webcam. Is it her obsessed ex? Her new beau? Or someone else?

 

A great ending capping off a turd of a film, this 2016 cyber-stalker flick from writer-director Branden Kramer is marginally more intelligent than “Unfriended”. However, that film was completely moronic and this one’s pretty damn stupid too. Apparently Kramer based the film on something similar that happened to a friend, who noticed their webcam indicator was flashing at odd times. That’s great, but that’s not the story Kramer tells here. We don’t see the webcam indicator being on at all in this film, and if it were on, you’d notice it. At least I certainly would, and I would hope everyone else would, too. Although most of us have probably heard that a webcam can be commandeered remotely, the film was nonetheless dead in the water for me, based solely on that cock up of not showing us the damn light.

 

However, the film is also confusingly done, at least to a non-technically inclined person like me. I may be out of the loop, but I don’t know of anyone who would take their laptop with them when they’re taking a piss, let alone turn their webcam on, which it appears Ashley Benson does. In fact, she has her webcam on when she’s outside too. At night. Like a normal person, of course. I mean, I could understand taking your phone into the bathroom perhaps, but a laptop? If anyone actually does do that, then they’re an idiot and kinda creepy to boot. Some (or even all) of this may be the phantom stalker at play (and indeed it appears that they have placed a camera somewhere in her apartment, but only one), but the way the film has been shot I could never tell whether it was the cyber-stalker, or just Benson herself using her webcam. We even get split-screen at one point, and that’s definitely not possible with a webcam. Sure, you can use split-screen on a laptop, but only one half of that screen is going to be the webcam, surely. That pissing scene in particular is seriously incoherent, because it’s clearly not a camera in the bathroom, it’s certainly not the webcam the whole time, and if it’s the movie camera…well, that’s just poor filmmaking. Also, a computer technician looks at the laptop at one point, but they don’t notice that there’s something wrong? I’m sorry, but I’m calling bullshit on that right there. If I’m missing something here (and I wasn’t engrossed in what I was seeing, so it’s possible), by all means fill me in. But from what I was seeing, I felt like the director never made it clear just what camera we were seeing things through, not all of the time.

 

It’s a shame the film is terrible, because there’s merit in the idea of Benson living on her own for the first time in a strange city is the kernel of a good idea for a creepy film. That’s the germ of an idea that everyone could’ve related to. Even some of the camera shots are kinda innovative (when I could work out the POV), and you do get the sense that the writer-director is trying to put you in the seat of the creepy pervert with some of the lingering shots, which is interesting. A lot of people didn’t like the ending, and I’m not overly keen on it being stretched out to the end credits, but otherwise I really loved it. It’s a killer of an ending at the service of a load of nonsense. The ending is pretty close to brilliant if you ask me.

 

Ashley Benson simply won’t do here as our protagonist, I’m afraid. She’s the second-least appealing star of “Pretty Little Liars” (which I promise I’ve never watched), and seems to be in a pretty horrendous mood even before things start to get creepy. I understand that she’s just out of a relationship, but I don’t think that entirely warrants Benson permanently wearing what I believe the kids call ‘resting bitch face’ (Especially considering it’s the same facial expression she probably calls ‘acting’ on her TV show). We also don’t learn enough about her character to be remotely interested in her, and if you’re not interested, how can you possibly care what happens to her? Much more likeable is former “Orange is the New Black” cast member Matt McGorry, but he’s not the focus of the film.

 

Honestly, the film was never going to be good given how uneventful it is for most of its less than 80 minutes, but at least if the writer-director made it clear about the webcam indicator light, it’d be a bit smarter. As is, it’s dumb and for the most part drearily uneventful. If any of this is actually possible/plausible, the film didn’t convince me of it. Benson is rather unsympathetic and grumpy in the lead, the film is tedious and stupid. It is wholly and completely undeserving of its great ending.

 

Rating: D