Naprata (2013) Review

naprata reviewSynopsis: Inspired by an infamous online video clip of a son beating his mother, a television crew from Belgrade comes to a remote Serbian village to shoot a report on violence against women. Inquiring with the locals about the protagonists of the video, they encounter a local expert on supernatural phenomena and learn about a ritual of summoning an ancient demon, naprata. Wanting to capture the first authentic footage of something otherworldly, they change their plans. Excited by the prospective success of the recording, they defy the old saying that “it’s better to believe than to be convinced.”

Quick Review: Naprata is being coined as the first “Serbian Found Footage Movie” and, being a fan of found footage myself, I could not wait to see what was in store for me.

65mn later, all I can say is that this movie won’t be the “A serbian Film” of the found footage genre.

Let’s start with the good: Performance by everybody involved was convincing and felt legit for a fake documentary style movie. According to IMDb, all the dialog was improvised so kudos for the reality factor.

The folklore behind the story was also very interesting and could have lead to a much better story if we hadn’t wasted an expository painful 40mn prior to get to the meat of the story.

Yeh, you guessed it, like many other found footage efforts, Naprata takes way too long to go anywhere remotely scary or creepy. Quite nothing on screen will hold your interest until the end and only the last 10mn or so are remotely interesting.

So, while I applaud the intentions behind the movie and the genuine aspect of it, I can’t go behind the lack of actual scares or visual horrors on screen.

My Rating: 4/10

Director

Origin: Serbia


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