An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at 2013’s Afflicted
Two friends set off on a yearlong trip around the world but, after a few days, one is attacked and comes down with mysterious illness that puts both in jeopardy.
Is it Scary?
Afflicted has very little jump scares but does have a bit of body horror that will make you squirm. Other than that it’s not scary and you don’t have to worry about not being able to sleep at night.
Detailed Plot:
The movie starts with two friends, Cliff and Derek (played by Cliff Prowse and Derek Lee, guess who plays who) having a party right before they set out for a year-long trip around the world. Turns out this is another found footage movie, I should really at least watch the trailers to some of these movies before I choose them.
The good thing is the footage is edited and there’s a good reason for it. The footage is being uploaded as vlogs like a YouTube video, so hopefully there won’t be any pointless lingering scenes of nothing happening.
Both friends give a brief history of themselves, Derek was an IT guy before realizing he wanted something more from life and Cliff is a filmmaker who doesn’t actually like traveling. They decide to travel around the world, posting the videos, and allowing the commenters and viewers to choose what they do next.
We find out Derek’s brother, Jason, thinks the trip is dangerous especially since they recently found out Derek has a cerebral arteriovenous malformation also known as AVM. This is an issue the arteries in his brain that can rupture and kill him without warning. But, this is also the reason Derek feels like he has to do this trip as a last wish of sorts.
On day 1 the two arrive in Barcelona, Spain, where they meet with two musician friends of theirs, Edo and Zach. After some skydiving, partying, and sightseeing, the four arrive in Paris, France, on day 7 with the goal of getting Derek laid.
At a bar where Edo and Zach are performing, Derek at first has no luck but eventually makes out with a girl, Audrey, and takes her back to the hotel. The other three friends decide to do what’s called a “Turkish Cockblock” which involves the group entering the room yelling “cockblock” while Derek and Audrey are presumably having sex.
The three get back to the hotel and enter the room but when they turn on the lights, Derek is bleeding and knocked out from an attack.
Derek refuses to go to a hospital saying the injuries look worse than they are. All he remembers is entering the room, Audrey hitting him on the head and waking up when the three friends entered. Cliff realizes Audrey left all her clothes in the room but there’s no other sign of her or where she went.
The next day Cliff and Derek, no longer with Edo and Zach, head to Italy by train. Derek crashes immediately upon entering the hotel room. On day 10 Cliff forces Derek to go with him for lunch saying he’s been sleeping too much and missing the best parts of Italy.
At the restaurant, Derek takes a few bites and starts to projectile vomit everywhere.
We cut to a little while later with Cliff trying to encourage Derek to go to the hospital but Derek continues to refuse, afraid that if they find something they’ll keep him there because of his pre-existing condition.
On day 11 the two head to a vineyard where, after some time, Derek’s skin gets red hot from the sun to the point of creating boils.
Back at the hotel the two argue over ending the trip since Derek appears to be getting worse. Derek loses his temper and punches a wall breaking the solid rock wall into pieces. Cliff then asks him to break two more pieces of rock confirming Derek now has super strength.
The two run other tests including punching a large boulder in half and lifting a car. They also discover Derek can run extremely fast, not the Flash fast but still pretty fast. I’m starting to think Derek has a case of vampirism.
The next night they test his speed with Derek reaching over 60 kilometers, or over 37 miles, per hour. Before they can celebrate, pain in Derek’s eye causes him to bend over in pain. Thinking it’s his contacts, he reaches into his eyes and pulls out a little more than just a contact. But despite pulling out his eye, it looks to be replaced by a new eye underneath.
Cliff gets a call from a worried Jason who begs Cliff to get Derek to a hospital but Cliff warns him it won’t be easy. He enters Derek’s room finding Derek hanging off the ceiling, laughing as Cliff jumps back scared. Derek tells him he’s not going to the hospital and he can prove he’s fine.
We cut to the two near some buildings at night and Derek is able to jump about 20 feet in the air without issue. He then attempts to jump to another building across the street but doesn’t make it. Although he appears to be fine, he collapses on the ground and finally agrees to go to a hospital.
On their way there, a car almost hits them swerving out of the way. The driver and his passenger get out and attack the two but Derek is able to easily throw them. One of which gets blood on Derek’s hand who then licks it. I mean, at least he’s finally eating something right?
Now realizing he may be a vampire, Cliff agrees to no longer post things but wants to document the process. They then research vampires, pulling up and dismissing common tropes such as turning into mist, controlling vermin, and having to be invited into a home before they can enter.
The two next test the blood trope and Cliff gets some cow blood from a butcher for Derek to drink but he ends up vomiting believing the blood has to be fresh. They then get some sausages to use to lure in a dog or a cat to get the blood from.
Unable to find a feral dog or cat they go back to the vineyard where they saw a pig. Derek attacks it, drinks it’s blood but throws up, now believing the blood has to be human. The two go to a blood bank where Derek has to give his ID but in the end is unable to steal the blood. Collapsing from hunger on the street Derek hears an ambulance coming and gets excited thinking there will be blood on it.
He stops the ambulance, tosses the driver away, instructs Cliff to drive and hops in the back. The problem they didn’t anticipate was another EMT in the back with a bleeding victim.
Derek attempts to ask her for blood packs in English and Italian but she says they don’t have any. Derek starts to growl seeing the blood on the victim but Cliff stops the ambulance and forces Derek out.
Outside Derek starts to break down realizing he almost attacked and killed for blood. The two run narrowly escaping the police with Derek making Cliff promise that he won’t leave him no matter how bad things get.
That night Cliff wakes up to the sounds of someone moving around his room then turns to see this.
Derek falls to the ground and begins to have a seizure. We cut to 11 hours later where Cliff tells us Derek is completely unresponsive except when he waves his hand near his face believing he can smell his blood. Cliff also won’t take him to the hospital for fear of what they’ll do to him.
A few nights later, after Derek wakes up and almost becomes feral, Cliff cuts his wrist and captures some blood. But, when he enters his room, Derek is gone leaving the window open. Cliff searches for him, finding him hiding by the vineyard. He offers him the jar of blood but Derek is too far gone and attacks Cliff knocking him to the ground and killing him before drinking his blood.
The camera cuts to a crying Derek, no longer feral, sitting on a chair and apologizing to the camera as he reveals a shotgun and shoots himself in the head in a pretty gnarly scene. We see the exit wound on his head and watch it begin to heal as Derek wakes up screaming.
We cut to four days later and Derek is alive with the hole in the back of his head healing slowly. He decides to look for Audrey in an attempt to find a cure for what is happening to him and if she can’t fix it he’ll kill her.
The next day Derek gets a visit from Interpol agents who want to bring him into the station but Derek tosses one aside and jumps out of the window. As the sun starts burning his skin he runs into a dark alley but is shot multiple times. He continues to run, eventually evading the police by hiding under a cave.
Several nights later he arrives in Paris and is hiding in an abandoned basement. While reviewing the footage Cliff took from when they were in Paris, he sees that Audrey left her cell phone in the hotel room. He makes his way to the hotel and is able to find her phone in the lost and found. As he leaves Jason appears having been brought by Interpol to convince Derek to turn himself in.
Derek warns Jason to stay and pushes him aside escaping through a back door but the police have already swarmed the hotel. Derek jumps to the adjacent building but a cop tries to grab him and Derek pushes him away. The cop trips and almost falls off the building but is able to grab the ledge. Derek tries to save him but the cop loses his grip and falls to his death.
Later we see Derek crying and feeling regret for failing to save the cop’s life. Back at the basement he starts to exhibit signs of turning feral but attempts to control it. He then texts every number in Audrey’s phone hoping he’ll get lucky and have her meet him.
After some time, now Day 27, the phone finally rings and Derek stakes out the meeting place. A man eventually appears but Derek chooses not to confront him, instead he follows him to a hideout in a building. Inside one of the rooms he finds a black and white photo of Audrey and the man attacks him but Derek easily gets the upper hand.
We cut to the man tied up to a chair and Derek starts a livestream to send a message to Audrey. Either she shows up or eventually he won’t be able to hold out much longer and will feed on her friend.
The stream is interrupted by a SWAT-like team showing up and unloading their weapons on Derek. After a couple of dozen bullets, Derek falls to the ground but a few moments later he awakens, now feral, and easily kills 6 of the officers and feeds on one. After feeding he’s able to regain his senses and escapes.
Back at the basement Derek gets another message on Audrey’s phone and heads to another location where Audrey finally shows up. Audrey attacks him for hurting her friend but then tells him he needs to make sure he feeds. Derek refuses to keep killing and asks for a cure to which Audrey tells him it’s not a disease, there is no cure.
Derek flips out and tries to kill Audrey but she quickly gets the upper hand, throwing him into a wooden pallet. He asks her to kill him and she drives a wooden stake into his chest.
Except he’s not dead, a moment later he wakes up and pulls the stake out. Audrey tells him they are essentially immortal and cannot die or else she would have killed herself already. He needs to feed every four to five days or he will turn into something much worse that will continuously kill. She also says he can’t not kill but he can choose who to kill as it makes a big difference.
When he asks her why she converted him, she tells him she could tell he was dying and thought she was being kind.
We jump to day 37 with Derek leaving a video message to his parents and Jason telling them he can no longer contact them. The film ends with Derek entering another room where he’s prepares to feed on a man he captured who has sexually assaulted a little girl.
In a mid-credits scene, back in Italy, we see three teens sneaking into a pool before they’re picked off one by one, the killer is then revealed to be Cliff, now a vampire.
Review:
Afflicted is another found footage film and if you’ve read some of my other explanations on found footage films like Devil’s Due, Paranormal Activity, and The Gallows then you know how I feel about them so it was a great surprise that this movie was SO GOOD.
Of course that could have been influenced by my low expectations but Afflicted does found footage differently by giving a story reason for the edited footage and introducing us to the found footage like a fun vlog. Then before it gets stale, it turns into a monster found footage movie.
The actors are great and story is done really well with the slow trickle of information for what Derek has turned into. Once he goes full vampire you’re completely invested in him finding a cure in a redemption arc.
Unfortunately since it is found footage a lot of the horror is lost but the gross transition into the monster actually helps until it goes full monster film it completely loses any horror.
A definite watch but expect to be grossed out more than scared.
Cast IMBD