3:15 am

3:15 AM is a French Found Footage horror anthology in which the stories revolve around this particular time, often taken to be the hour of the witch or having other foreboding significance.

This anthology features segments which are wildly uneven, embedded within a wrap-around "story", which I put in parentheses because there is really no story, as it just involves a woman getting chased in the woods.

Two of the five segments were above average and worth watching:

Footage # 4 involves a trio of sociology students who wish to shoot a documentary around a question well worth thinking about: why it is that, as our standards of morality have changed over time (case in point: slavery was regarded as biblically sanctioned not too many decades ago), the moral attitude of society toward prostitutes hasn't?

As part of the project, they go out at 2:00 am to interview street walkers. Initially, nobody wants to talk to them, but then they find a group of seemingly friendly ones who are all too happy to be interviewed. Once the eponymous time arrives, things go not too well for the students

This segment is both commendable for the completely unexpected direction it takes and the intensity of the proceedings once things get going. I also found it to be educational on what this group of interviewees ends up being about.

Footage #6 involves a couple who visit Crater Lake in search of Bigfoot and end up being relentlessly stalked by a large bear. I found this segment the most disturbing because the nature of the threat was entirely realistic: bears have among the keenest sense of smell in the entire animal kingdom, an estimated seven times better than bloodhounds. If you visit a National Park with bears in it, chances are you will be smelled by at least one, even if it is miles away. And bears sometimes do stalk humans.

The gorgeousness of the nature shots is contrasted with the deadliness of the threat very nicely in this segment.

These segments may end up not being seen by many people because the first two segments (excluding the wrap-around non-story) will likely turn quite a few off: both are nonsensical, and the second one is especially inane. The rest are mediocre.

If you have a chance to watch this, just fast-forward to the above two segments, you won't miss much with the rest. A much better found footage horror anthology is V/H/S 2 (2013).

I don't remember the last time I left a review, but this anthology just needs more of them. First off, I like found footage movies, so that isn't an issue.

The camera work is awful, taking into account that in this type of movies the camera is at times very shaky, here is done to the extreme. Besides that they usually point at nothing trying to create a suspenseful atmosphere without achieving it.

The actors do not convey any terror whatsoever, many of them are too amateurish to feel strongly for what they are seeing, or experiencing. Some of the dialogue isn't very credible either, it just doesn't sound natural.

The stories are not that interesting, I get they are shorts, but they aren't substantial enough to captivate.

We only finished watching it because we thought that maybe the end would justify the journey, it didn't.

Maybe some of these shorts could be extended into a single better movie by themselves, but as this anthology stands I wouldn't recommend it.

Just about the dumbest, boringest (yes, I know that's not an actual word), rip off I have ever spent 15 minutes fast forwarding through to find something remotely resembling a plot.

This is just a time waster for found footage completists, and background noise you can glance at while you do something else. You don't even need subtitles if you don't speak French.