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Just what I expected

best movie i've ever seen.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A horror film, this is not. In fact, I don't quite know how to classify this movie. It is a thriller, I suppose, but fails in delivering any type of thrills or edge-of-your-seat moments. It is a slow burn, without any sort of satisfying pay-off. Most of the budget had to have been used for the soundtrack, because there were some decent songs used throughout the film (Awolnation's "Sail" was excitingly in here) and the rest probably went to pay Christian Slater for his less-than-memorable performance. If you still have respect for his earlier work, please stay far away from this petty attempt at cinema. The acting from the rest of the cast starts off really bad, but I blame the written dialogue for this. I understand it's hard to write teenage dialogue, especially at the beginning of a "horror" film, but you'd think someone would have spruced it up a bit after the initial draft. It gets a little better later on, after the movie tries and fails to introduce the characters, but it's enough to make you blush a bit for the producers. The plot seems to go all over the place, and there's no real sense of meaning to anything that's going on. I felt literally no connection to any of the characters, and was thus never compelled to sympathize with any of them. I would have enjoyed to see more of the Louis Le Prince story show its face, but the writers instead just used it as a device to ...well...I don't even know. I'll chalk it up to writer's block. And, I'm going to go ahead and say it...I think Quinn had a huffing addiction. It explains EVERYTHING! The crap on his face had nothing to do with a demon, and had everything to do with a $4 can of silver spray paint from the local hardware store. Case closed.~NateMcCheezy

First the good news I did not pay for the film it was free on Sky, when I say free I mean apart from the exorbitant monthly subscription. Now the bad news I was robbed. The story line a man who we get to know very little about in the early part of the 20th century made a cameo film so he could steal the souls of the people in the footage.Then jump forward to I think 1994 and deranged Harlan Diehl (Luke Bonczyk) kills his family in their farm and only a baby survives. We then get to the present day and a group of replaceable teenager Americans who look more middle to late twenties than teenagers (Toby Hemingway,Jonahtan Keltz, Johnny Pacar, Jennifer Missoni, Luke Bonczyk, Alessandra Torresani and Ambyr Childer) All hell breaks out murder a bit of flesh and a bit of gore.Now how far must your career sink when appearing in this mess seems like a good idea? Christian Slater wanders bored as a porn-addicted cop buying covert footage from inside the girls locker school from the pre-possessed filmmaker.Writing that it seems more exciting then it is the acting is appalling, the script has no thought, the plot messy. On a Saturday we like to get a Chinese takeaway and my cat tried a prawn cracker about an hour in to the film which he surprisingly enjoyed, my cat eating a prawn cracker was like the making of Citizen Kane compared to this film. Avoid like the plague and if anyone bumps into Christian Slater ask him what the hell he was thinking.

This is one boring movie. Maybe it's just me, but thirty minutes in, I feel as if I'm still waiting for the movie to start. Let me see if I can understand it (and this is debatable): A Satanist in the 1900s made a film that allowed him to steal the souls of his actors in the footage, and after a brutal murder scene in the Late 90s, he now jumps from film footage into other the bodies of others, sometimes more than one person at once. In recent years, he possesses a young filmmaker and tries to recapture his power with modern video equipment. There are some murders, some pointless sexuality and Christian Slater completely wasted in a role as a porn-addicted cop buying covert footage from inside the girls locker school from the pre-possessed filmmaker. Did I get it right? What do I win? Filmed partially in a pseudo-documentary style, the script has uneven amounts of sex, gore and suspense, but it never gets scary nor does it ever really clarify itself. I can see the story that that the writer is trying to make, but there's too many layers and exposition to get there. The only other recognizable name is Alessandra Torresani ("An American Horror Movie"), but she's barely given anything to do before her character is killed off. Over all, the idea is there, but it's lost under a lot of details and in the execution.

I don't usually do this, but some of you might stumble upon a review by IMDb username tlsmith-569-716188 as the visible review on this film's page. Aside from mistaking Christian Slater for Christian Bale, it's obviously biased and written by either someone who took part in the making of this film, or someone to related to such a person. Do your part and click "no". We deserve more integrity.Having said that, let's get back to "Playback". I must say that while I did enjoy watching it, I couldn't help but finding the screenplay and story lacking. The idea is nice while not all that original (The Ring has already given us "evil from a videotape" and this was simply too similar), but the twist was too obvious and predictable. A good plot twist is one where the balance between the hints given and the element of surprise upon the discovery is kept. In this case - the hints were too thick, and the surprise was gone. That might be because I'm a Horror freak and have watched many Horror and Thriller films, but I can't help but expect more.The second thing, which was really sad for me, was Christian Slater's roll. Oh my, how the great ones have fallen and been humbled to a shady background role of a semi-pedophile creep. I'd hate to think that after his illustrious career Slater has been degraded to his role here. Depressing.However, while not being the best film ever, Playback is far from being bad. The effects and cinematography were very impressive, the original indie-rock soundtrack was great and is in my opinion good enough to purchase if available, and the way some of the scenes shot by the kids in the movie end up realized by the killer was very nice. But the best thing about this film is for sure Toby Hemingway's acting (and a great job by the make-up department). Hemingway was superb, and I look forward to seeing him in other films!All in all, like I've mentioned, Playback wasn't the best film ever, nor the worst. It had its moment, and while it could have been a lot better - it could have been a lot worse too. I personally rate it a 6, but recommend that you give it a shot.