There are bad horror movies, and then there are found footage horror movies so inept they make you nostalgic for the days when “Blair Witch” just meant shaky cam and snot bubbles. The Final Project (2015) manages to take the already threadbare corpse of the found footage genre and drag it behind a pickup truck through the swamps of Louisiana for 82 agonizing minutes.
Written and directed by Taylor Ri’chard, this movie is supposedly about six college students who decide to film a documentary for extra credit. What they actually film is the cinematic equivalent of a group text you can’t escape — full of static, whining, and people you pray die just to stop talking.
The Premise: “What If We Made A Movie Nobody Could Finish?”
The movie begins with a faceless narrator explaining that what we’re about to watch is “real footage” from a group of college students who vanished. This is already a red flag. Whenever a movie feels the need to tell you “this really happened,” it’s basically admitting it doesn’t have the budget, script, or acting talent to convince you otherwise.
The six victims — sorry, characters — are:
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Anna (Teal Haddock), the obligatory “Final Girl” with the emotional range of wet cardboard.
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Jonah (Leonardo Santaiti), her boyfriend, who’s somehow both bland and unlikable.
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Gen (Arin Jones), the one who goes full demonic later — which is honestly an improvement.
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Ky (Evan McLean), the token tech nerd who handles the cameras and dies first, as tradition demands.
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Gavin (Sergio Suave), the jokester with a name that sounds like a cologne brand for douchebags.
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Misty (Amber Erwin), whose only personality trait is “owns a flashlight.”
Together, these six make up the worst study group in cinematic history. Their grand idea? Break into a haunted plantation in Louisiana to film a ghost documentary for class credit.
Because nothing screams “A+ material” like trespassing, desecrating cursed property, and narrating your own death.
The Setting: Plantation of Plot Holes
The haunted Chretien Point Plantation is supposedly one of those Southern gothic locations teeming with dark history and restless spirits. You’d expect the film to lean into atmosphere — the eerie stillness, the creaking floorboards, maybe a dash of Cajun folklore.
Instead, it looks like someone filmed the world’s longest frat initiation inside an abandoned Airbnb. The lighting is atrocious — you can’t tell if the ghosts are hiding or if the cameraman just forgot to bring batteries. Every time something “scary” happens, it’s immediately followed by ten minutes of heavy breathing and confused dialogue like:
“Did you hear that?”
“Yeah.”
“What was that?”
“I don’t know.”
“We should go check.”
And then — surprise! — they die.
Repeat that formula six times, shake the camera like a toddler on a sugar high, and congratulations: you’ve recreated The Final Project.
Found Footage or Lost Cause?
Look, found footage can work when it’s done right. Paranormal Activity proved that minimalism can be terrifying. The Blair Witch Project turned shaky cam into an art form.
But The Final Project plays like someone watched those movies once and thought, “What if we just forgot to hire an editor?”
The “footage” is stitched together so incoherently it’s hard to tell who’s filming or why. Cameras switch perspectives mid-scream. Dialogue cuts off mid-sentence. Characters talk about “rolling tape” while clearly holding GoPros that don’t record audio.
At one point, the camera literally films the ground for two minutes straight while someone screams in the distance. The scene might have been scary if it weren’t for the fact that the microphone picks up the director coughing.
Acting So Bad It’s Almost Performance Art
The cast is made up of “inexperienced actors,” which was apparently intentional. Director Taylor Ri’chard said he wanted the movie to “feel real.”
Well, mission accomplished. It feels really bad.
Every line delivery sounds like it’s being read off a cue card written in crayon. The actors have all the chemistry of strangers forced to share an Uber. When the first ghost-related event happens, their reactions range from “mildly inconvenienced” to “vaguely gassy.”
Example:
Anna: “Something touched me.”
Jonah: “Probably a rat.”
Anna: “No, it was cold.”
Jonah: “Then it’s a ghost rat.”
That’s not a joke. That’s actual dialogue.
The Ghosts: Casper’s Drunk Cousins
You’d think a movie about haunted plantations would at least deliver on ghostly scares. Nope. The supernatural entity here is so poorly defined it might as well be a malfunctioning smoke machine.
Sometimes the ghost manifests as a shadow. Sometimes as a gust of wind. Sometimes as Gen’s face contorting like she just smelled a fart.
There’s no lore, no buildup, no consistency. Just random creepy noises and a few jump scares that could’ve been added in post by a YouTuber with iMovie.
The film’s climax — if you can call it that — features possessed Gen chasing her friends around while the camera swings wildly like someone attached it to a washing machine. It’s hard to feel fear when you’re too busy trying not to get motion sickness.
The Ending: “Surprise! It’s Still Terrible!”
In true found footage fashion, everyone dies.
Well, almost. The movie ends with an anonymous narrator — who turns out to be Gen’s sibling — warning the audience that she’s still out there and we shouldn’t approach her.
Then we get a final scene where Gen, now in police custody, is questioned about the murders. She pretends not to remember anything until — gasp! — she becomes possessed again and attacks the officers.
It’s meant to be chilling. It’s not. It plays like the world’s worst deleted scene from CSI: Baton Rouge.
The movie closes with static and a lingering sense that you’ve just wasted precious minutes of your life that could have been spent watching paint dry — or better yet, The Blair Witch Project again.
Technical “Merits” (Using That Word Loosely)
The cinematography looks like it was filmed on a potato. The sound design alternates between inaudible whispers and eardrum-shattering static. The editing is so choppy you’d think the footage was attacked by the ghost of Final Cut Pro.
Even the score — or lack thereof — works against the film. Silence can be unnerving when used effectively. Here, it just feels like someone forgot to add background music because they ran out of budget for creepy violin strings.
The Real Horror: It Got a Theatrical Release
Yes, this movie somehow played in actual theaters. Human beings paid real money to sit in the dark and watch what looks like rejected home videos from a failed ghost-hunting YouTube channel.
Taylor Ri’chard deserves some credit for ambition — quitting his corporate job to make horror movies takes guts. Unfortunately, The Final Project feels less like a passion project and more like a group assignment turned in five minutes before the deadline.
How To Make It Better (Spoiler: You Can’t)
If I were to give constructive feedback (which, to be clear, feels like exorcising my own patience), here’s what The Final Project needed:
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A script written by an actual human.
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Lighting that doesn’t resemble a blackout.
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A ghost with a motivation beyond “be inconvenient.”
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Actors capable of simulating basic fear.
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A found footage conceit that doesn’t make you pray for the footage to stay lost.
But alas, this movie is beyond saving. It’s not scary. It’s not funny. It’s not even entertaining in a “so bad it’s good” way. It’s just… there. Like a haunted PowerPoint presentation about poor life choices.
Final Thoughts: The Only Thing Found Was Regret
The Final Project is the cinematic equivalent of finding an abandoned VHS tape labeled “DO NOT WATCH” and watching it anyway — only to realize it’s just footage of six idiots getting murdered by bad filmmaking.
It’s not terrifying, it’s not suspenseful, and it’s certainly not “final.” It’s a project that never should’ve been turned in.
Final Score: 2/10
So boring even the ghosts left early. If you want found footage horror, stick to the classics. If you want to experience genuine suffering, press play on this. Just don’t expect to make it out alive — or awake.
