1 out of 5

Directed by: Justin Gallaher, Sam Roseme

The definition of a “forgettable” piece of media should be exactly that: that after consuming it, you… forget about it. I have a habit of trying to review something soon after I get through it, firstly so that tasks don’t stack up, but also so that my impressions are fresh; it’s personally telling when I feel okay waiting on something, because it suggests my take is pretty settled, and that I may not have much to say. But zeroing on something being forgettable – it wasn’t until I stumbled across the screen in my abode where ‘Motion Detected’ had finished playing that I realized I’d recently watched it.

Setting aside some technical flaws I’ll get into, this is certainly the film’s biggest knock: there’s nothing in it that makes an impression. It’s not necessarily bad – forgettable doesn’t have to mean poor quality, per se – but there’s a certain incompetence to its structure that guarantees it to be underwhelming. Combined with some arguably poor choices for applying its low budget, and… yeah. I forgot about it.

A supernatural “ghost in the machine” type flick, Motion Detected may not be a necessarily new spin – a couple moves into a new home with a fancy security system, only for the often-left-alone wife to realize there’s something sinister about the system itself – but that in itself is fine: a million movies are a copy of a millions others; presentation is the name of the game. But the movie does a cold open where it shows off its primary effect – a glitchy, digital artifact – and does nothing to really hide it, meaning we see the “monster” fully exposed from the start. That a 2023 flick makes this effect look on par with, say, 1990s TV CG is… odd. I admittedly have no idea what it takes to fund a film, and understand that money is spread thinner across a full production than it might be in a youtube video, but all the same, it’s an unfortunate bit of cringe, right out of the gate. And from thereon out, nothing helps the movie recover from this, not adding to – but rather repeating – appearances of that monster, and calling the security system “Diablo,” which really doesn’t seem like an appealing name?, and only exists, amongst other forced dialogue moments, to tie into an event from the heroine’s past.

There is a seed there that was worth exploring in the movie: again, nothing new, but how past traumas affect our present state is a good emotional hook, and Julie Brister, the lead, does a solid job with a lot of hackneyed exposition (talking to herself out loud) to present that balance between disbelief in what you’re seeing, and disbelief in one self.

Writer / directors Justin Gallaher and Sam Roseme are clearly stretching other things besides their budget, though, essentially just putting Brister’s character through the same “I saw something on the security camera” light spooks the whole way through, and using a very odd editing swipe to flashback and give her current fears more context. The editing is the next big gaffe, and indicative of that stretching: scenes start way before they need to, and end way after they need to. Combined with an undefining style (besides some forced Dutch angles), the 90s TV reference stands out more – this feels like an earlier-era DTV affair.

Other things could be taken to task around the story, which has its share of illogical notes, but that’s more important if you’re paying attention, and, unfortunately, there’s not much of the movie that requires you to do that.

Motion Detected is an acceptable proof-of-concept of a thriller, and could have potential as a short film, but its 90-minute runtime and thin presentation make it hard to stay, or even get, invested.