Zero Day

The horrifying truth is, these boys were not just neurotic self-loathers, but were thinking, relatively intelligent neurotic self-loathers who murdered more out of principle than emotion. But despite how well-constructed and nuanced this portraiture is, this film conflicts me: does my watching it in some broad fashion encourage the kids' callous and self-righteous murder of others?

It's done in the 'found footage' style, where it's all filmed by the characters themselves. This gives a pretty real and natural quality to it, which is backed up by the surprisingly convincing young actors. They were very good at portraying really scary and methodical killers. I still don't think a film about Columbine has been done perfectly, but I hope it happens someday because it's an infinitely fascinating subject.

ITS MY SLEEPOVER AND I GET TO PICK THE MOVIE

Achieves total authenticity referring to its found-footage aesthetic, this is an incredibly unsettling, yet weirdly ordinary portrayal of a terrible event and its extensive preparation. If you're wanting a real tense film that makes your never-regions sweat like a perspiration factory, watch this.

6.11.17

For a film about school shootings, Zero Day notably lacks footage of school life. Whatever led the two to commit the massacre is only told, not shown, to the film's detriment. Nonetheless, this is a must-watch for those interested in Columbine: imagine the Basement Tapes, but from a parallel universe. There's even one scene near the end that’s an obvious paraphrase of one of the tape entries. So much more to pick up on, too: there is remarkable attention paid to aspects of the incident.

Very disturbing. Gave me chills