Viewer beware, you’re in for a scare!

If this film was actually scary…

I don’t scare easy, I admit to that; I’ve been watching horror since I was twelve, and before that I spent time watching my brother play the early Resident Evil games from the age of eight – so it’s hard to find something that gives me a good scare, therefore I settle on gore.

This has none.

The film opens on two friends going through a box of things, finding an old polaroid camera and discussing how the owner’s mother liked to use it before she died – likely by the demon as they find a polaroid picture of the mother; the daughter’s friend then receives a text about a lingerie photo and pressures her friend into taking that type of photo, too. They take it with the polaroid camera, and the friend asks why it’s not ‘working’, which seems odd to me since polaroids have made a little comeback over the last two years…

Anyway, friend leaves, daughter dies. Let’s skip ahead!

School picture day introduces us to Bird, aka Scarf-girl, a shy budding photographer with social issues; as she leaves school, she takes a picture of popular Connor before heading to her job in an antique store, she’s trying to fix a pocket watch when her friend, Tyler, comes in with a box from a yard sale – the box contains the evil camera.

Bird takes Tyler’s picture, he tries to kiss her while she’s checking out a smudge in the photo and she bolts home with the camera and film. Her BFF Kasey comes around to take her to Avery’s belated Halloween party, bringing her a Red Riding Hood cloak to wear; they meet friends, Devin and Mina in the car.

Meanwhile, Tyler is the first victim of the fifty-a-day-smoker sounding Entity. Not sure how he’s killed, it’s all done off-screen like the previous victim.

The group arrive at Avery’s, who’s dressed as a ‘sexy fortune teller’ and hands out tarot cards to Devin, Mina and Kasey, but makes Bird pick her own: Death. Avery comments that it’s a bad card, but anyone with real tarot knowledge knows it isn’t. Film’s foreshadowing is fail.

Bird splits from the group when she sees a masked guest staring at her, but it catches up with her upstairs and turns out to be Connor; he asks if his picture turned out good, and she plays it off as her just testing her camera and it just happened to be in his direction. He seems to like her, but it’s hard to understand why if she’s known as the school freak and he’s Mr. Popular.

Connor finds the camera in her bag and she explains it’s an old Polaroid; her friend’s join them upstairs and they take a group photo.

Bird notices a shadow in the picture she took and Avery takes the camera for a selfie, but isn’t impressed; someone yells to the hostess that the police have arrived and they’re there for Bird.

The Sheriff questions her about Tyler and tells her he died in the antique shop. At home, she looks through the polaroids she has; the smudge has disappeared from Tyler’s photo, as has the shadow from the group shot – now there’s one looming in Avery’s picture. Bird contemplates calling Avery (although I don’t know why she’d have her number, Avery didn’t seem to like her) but brushes it off and goes to sleep.

The Entity stalks his prey and snaps Avery’s neck.

Next day, Kasey tells Bird that Avery had slipped down her basement steps and broken her neck – twisted around like something from the Exorcist, but notes that Avery wasn’t even drunk when they left. Bird checks the photos. The shadow is now back in the group photo.

Bird then tells her friends that the camera might be haunted and that they’re next. Devin decides to just burn the picture, but as the flames spread Mina’s arm catches fire; Connor tries to put her out with the extinguisher and Kasey’s hair begins to smoke. Bird pats out the flames on the picture and the polaroid magically restores itself.

At the hospital, the group question Bird more about the camera and she remembers it came with a case that she left at the store; she and Connor head there where she sneaks in through a back vent while Connor is on lookout. As he waits, he studies the group photo closer and the camera begins to make a noise as though the flash is charging. The Entity is nearby. In the store, Bird finds the case, but is then chased by The Entity; she almost chokes when her scarf catches on a loose nail, but Connor saves her in time; she questions why it’s after her and Connor points out that she’s in the window’s reflection in the photo – she’s technically in the shot, too.

Failing to kill Bird, The Entity goes after bed bound Mina; when Devin checks on her she’s seemingly nowhere to be found – until her body drops down from the ceiling. Devin explains to the cops that Mina didn’t hang herself, just as Bird and Connor arrive; Devin blames Bird and she runs off. Connor follows.

Bird recalls the accident that killed her father to Connor; she feels guilty about being a brat when she was twelve and making her father turn the car around resulting in the crash – though that doesn’t explain exactly how she got her scar on her neck. Connor reassures her that her father wouldn’t blame her and that this situation isn’t her fault, she says that, as a reporter, he’d be trying to figure it all out; they check the case and find an old evidence tag, a little digging leads then to an article about a teacher torturing and killing students while taking photos.

The camera belonged to former photography teacher Roland Joseph Sable.

They regroup at a diner, but Devin is still blaming Bird for Mina’s death; he tries to take a picture of her, but Connor wrestles the camera from him and accidently takes a picture of Devin in the process – Devin tries again, but Kasey stops him by damaging his picture and he accidently lashes out at a cop in anger.

Connor and Bird try to explain Devin’s actions to the Sheriff, and that the ghost of Roland is coming for him – they need to get to his old house to find out more; the Sheriff warns them away from the house but lets them see their friend before they leave. Devin apologises to Bird, Kasey calls to inform her that the house still belongs to Roland’s wife – she just changed the name on the house deed.

The pair meet Lena Sable and Bird convinces her that she owns her husband’s camera; Lena says the camera belonged to Rebecca – their daughter – who was tricked into taking sleazy photos and killed herself from embarrassment when the photos where shown to her peers; Roland killed the students who took the photos, but one survived when he was killed by the police, still holding the camera.

Roland kills Devin the his holding cell and swiftly moves on to Bird and Connor; they break into the school to look for old student yearbooks and find Roland’s last victim: the Sheriff.

The Sheriff has already caught up to them and grabbed Kasey along the way; Connor takes his photo for Roland to target, but the Sheriff explains Lena lied, he and his friend’s were helping Rebecca escape from Roland who was sexually abusing her – he killed them to stop them from talking and using the photos as evidence, and then Rebecca killed herself in guilt.

Roland appears and rips the Sheriff’s picture in half. Surprisingly, the Sheriff splits in half very cleanly…no blood…no senew splitting apart but by bit…

The only on-screen death was very disappointing…

Kasey and Bird split from Connor and hide in the showers; Bird turns them all one to create heat and that keeps Roland away from them, so Bird leaves Kasey there to find Connor. Connor finds her first and she says she has an idea, but they need the camera; Roland finds them just as they recover it and drags Connor away, so Bird takes a photo of herself to become his target. She runs into the basement and into the dark room where Roland first died; they get into a scuffle, she manages to take his picture and crumple it in her hand – it only stops him momentarily so she sets the photo on fire, killing Roland for good.

Once Bird throws the camera into the river, life continues as normal…

I was so mad by the end of this film. Polaroid had a lot of potential in the horror department but the creators just wussed out on any gorey creativity; which is a shame, because despite the cliches, it has a good story to it…even if it’s slightly ripped from the old Goosebumps ‘Say Cheese and Die’ of season 1 episode 15. They even share a character called ‘Bird’.

Oh and Life is Strange, it ripped a little off that, too.

If you’re not familiar with either, Life is Strange had a Photography teacher who drugged his female students to take sleazy photos of them.

Granted, it’s not exactly the same, but the plot of Roland taking photos of his daughter was enough to remind me of this.

Say Cheese and Die. Well, although the photos in that predicted people’s deaths, there’s a scene in the book where one photo shows the victim being chased by a shadow; and the villian dies by having his photo taken by the same camera.

Rating: 2/5. It’s an interesting expansion of the old Goosebump story, and I enjoyed the twist that Rebecca’s bullies were actually her friends; however, off-screen killings are boring and you don’t see the aftermath of Tyler, Avery and Devin’s deaths, the lack of gore with the Sheriff’s death was also a huge letdown!