Trace Movie Review

Trace begins with an extended montage of images showing a creepy abandoned complex in the Soviet Union. Text of the screen tells of a program way back, where the Soviets attempted to study EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon), but eventually gave up. The opening scene shows the exact reason why, and it's pretty effective.

We hop to the main characters – a group of friends, one who is studying EVP himself. He shows a bit of his latest audio capture, and from there the group starts dying off one by one, as it appears that they've unleashed a demon.

I don't want to sound overly harsh because this flick's not bad if you've never seen an EVP horror movie. It's very low budget, but writer/director Ryan Brookhart and cinematographer Matt Sweeney do their best to fight that appearance. The acting for the most part is decent, so things are copacetic there.

The problem is that there's just not enough stuff happening for anyone who has seen movies like this, including the 2005 Michael Keaton vehicle White Noise, or a host of other demon-stalks-teen films.

This is much more of a psychological horror than anything else. The deaths are tame and the scares are few and far between. This is the kind of movie that sits in your Netflix queue for a month, and then you finally watch it and give it 3 out of 5 stars. Not bad if you're done binge-watching Supernatural, but not something so compelling you have to watch it now.

Those who enjoy their horror more on the creepy side might want to give this a shot – once the demon makes an appearance, the movie picks up the pace.