"The Upper Footage"
It wasn't just bad, it was annoying.
Had it been made prior to "The Blair Witch Project" and just a short film made by a group of friends with a good camera, it would be OK.
I want to state all kinds of negative one-liners but that's not being objective and will get ignored. s in the Found Footage genre were was, "The Blair Witch Project." Quite a few of my co-workers thought that Blair Witch was real. That was due in part to the multimedia campaign elements such as the website.
The Spanish film, ".REC" was great. It was engaging from beginning to end. Not that a real budget necessarily matters but it had about $1.8 million and the money was widely spent.
I found V/H/S to be better than this and that movie received poor reviews. It was crudely filmed but then so was The Blair Witch project but it wasn't dishonest.
I was misled by the list of positive reviews by Internet critics on the Vimeo site as well as the user reviews.
I'll stop short of accusing the film makers of using their own people as shills. For all of the dishonesty, lack of creativity and lack of entertainment value, I'm giving this a 4.
Only because the male anti-hero actors were good. Not being sexist. The females were just one dimensional.
If "The Upper Footage" entertains you then great. I can't stand Ranch dressing, avocados or curry but don't criticize others who do.
If you enjoy found footage films and never watched ".REC" have a look at both the Spanish original and the American version with Dexter's sister, Jennifer Carpenter. The American remake did justice to the original.
If you watched this on Vimeo, the Joss Whedon film, "In Your Eyes" is a better choice for your first Vimeo rental. A nice romance, low key, great acting with characters you liked.
Roger Ebert was the last of the educated and credentialed, objective professional critics. The rest have zero credibility whose one-liner reviews are from a copy/paste cheat sheet.