Polaroid is styled in the vein of The Ring and Final Destination and centers on a high school loner, Bird Fitcher, who stumbles upon a vintage Polaroid camera. Bird soon learns that the camera houses a terrible secret: whoever has their picture taken by it meets a tragic and violent end. The girl and her friends must survive one more night as they race to solve the mystery of the haunted Polaroid before it kills them all.
Polaroid is a 2019 American supernatural horror film directed by Lars Klevberg, and based on his 2015 short film of the same name. The film follows high schooler Bird Fitcher, who is given a vintage Polaroid camera that holds dark and mysterious secrets. She soon realizes that those who get their picture taken by it meet a tragic death. It stars Kathryn Prescott, Samantha Logan, Tyler Young, and Javier Botet.
Dimension Films announced the film in 2015, with Klevberg set to direct and Blair Butler writing the script. Principal photography began in Halifax, Nova Scotia on March 9, 2017, and was completed in May 2017. The film was originally set to be released in August 2017, but was rescheduled several times. By October 2018, Lantern Entertainment, which acquired The Weinstein Company/Dimension’s assets through its bankruptcy, and 13 Films, an international distribution and finance company, had struck a deal to co-distribute the film internationally.
Polaroid was theatrically released in Germany on January 10, 2019, by Wild Bunch, and in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2019. It was released in the United States on September 17, 2019 on VOD and on October 11, 2019, in select theatres, by Vertical Entertainment, before streaming on Netflix. The film received mostly negative reviews from critics, with criticism aimed towards the film’s heavy reliance on jump scares and its plot.
Film Review for Polaroid
Sarah (Madelaine Petsch) and her friend are going through a box of her late mother’s stuff when they find a Polaroid camera. The friend received a “like” from her crush, which provokes Sarah to take a photo in lingerie on the Polaroid camera. When the flash goes off, Sarah seems uneasy. Her friend leaves, & Sarah is home alone. When she takes a look at the Polaroid, there is a creepy shadow behind her in the photo of her.
Startled, she treats it as a smudge & starts cleaning. She hears eerie sounds in the attic, which she investigates. She gets frightened in the attic and falls, but ends up dangling by her ankles instead of falling to the floor. While feeling a brief moment of relief as her hair dangles in her face, she is then pulled up by an entity and is killed offscreen before her dead body tumbles to the ground.
Shy high school student Bird (Kathryn Prescott) is given an old Polaroid camera by her co-worker Tyler, who got it from a garage sale. The camera has the initials “RJS” carved into it. Bird snaps a picture of Tyler but later notices an odd smudge-like figure on his photo.
Bird attends a costume party with her best friend Kasey (Samantha Logan) and meets her other friends Mina, Mina’s boyfriend Devin, Avery, and Bird’s high school crush Connor (Tyler Young). She uses her Polaroid camera to take the group’s picture and Avery later snaps a selfie with it. Meanwhile, Tyler is killed by the entity, and Sheriff Pembroke informs Bird. At home, Bird sees Tyler’s photo free from the shadow, which has mysteriously transferred to Avery’s photo.
Avery is killed when the entity snaps her neck. When Bird learns about this, she tries to destroy the camera and attempts to warn her friends. Devin attempts to burn the group photo, but when the flames reach Mina in the photo, her arm spontaneously combusts and the flames cannot be extinguished. Kasey’s fingers are slightly singed before Bird stomps out the fire and the photograph restores itself. Mina is taken to the hospital to undergo surgery for her arm; Devin and Kasey stay with her while Bird and Conner leave to learn more about the camera.
Bird and Connor research and discover that the camera was owned by a photography teacher Roland Joseph Sable (RJS) from their school years ago. He was accused of torturing four students and killing three of them while taking maniacal photographs. One of the captives escaped and Roland was killed by police. Bird is attacked by the entity, which behaves like a photograph: following the same rules as photographic development (i.e. it is sensitive to heat). She questions why she was chased too and notices that her reflection is in the photo’s background.
Mina is killed at the hospital by the entity when she is left alone briefly. Devin finds Mina’s dead body and blames Bird for her death. Devin confronts Bird at the diner and accuses her of being responsible for what happened to Mina. He attempts to take a picture of her as a threat. With Connor and Devin both fighting for the camera, Devin is accidentally snapped by the camera and the shadow transfers to his photo, showing he is next. Devin lunges at Bird, Kasey saves Bird by stabbing Devin’s photo with a pencil, injuring him in real life. Devin upset from being stabbed becomes aggressive and accidentally slaps a cop. Devin is detained by Pembroke and is later killed in his cell by the entity.
Connor, Kasey, and Bird learn Roland’s wife is alive and visit her. They meet an elderly lady named Lena Sable, who explains that the camera actually belonged to her daughter Rebecca James Sable (RJS). Lena explains that Rebecca was “slow,” and when gifted with the camera she became very attached to it.
As a result, Rebecca was bullied by four classmates, who took the camera and used it to take inappropriate photos of her. She committed suicide out of shame, causing her father Roland to abduct and kill her bullies in a fit of rage. Now even in death, Roland roams, looking for the last bully who escaped to kill him. Lena shows the two a picture of the survivor and they search the yearbooks.
Bird finds out that the survivor was Sheriff Pembroke. In an attempt to stop the entity from killing them, Connor takes a picture of Pembroke, who reveals that Roland was the real bully to Rebecca, having sexually assaulted her. The four students, including him, were Rebecca’s friends trying to warn her of her father’s actions upon finding her nude pictures in his possession. Fearing the public would find out, Roland abducted them, prompting Rebecca to kill herself in fear.
The entity tears Pembroke’s picture in half, killing him. The entity stabs through Kasey’s leg, impairing her ability to walk. Conner is separated from Kasey and Bird; the girls find safety in the school’s showers, with Bird turning on the hot water to create heat, preventing the entity from reaching them. Bird leaves to find Conner, they reunite and she has an idea that involves getting the camera back (having been left where Sheriff Pembroke was killed) and going somewhere where the entity can “fully develop.”
The entity manifests and drags Conner away, but Bird takes a picture of herself, prompting the creature to chase after her. She leads the entity into the school’s dark room, where it is able to fully develop. She takes a picture of the entity, crushes the photo trying to kill it. Unsuccessful and fearing for her life she then burns it last minute, disintegrating the entity where everything took place many years ago. She reunites with her friends and throws the camera into a river.
Polaroid (2019)
Directed by: Lars Klevberg
Starring: Kathryn Prescott, Grace Zabriskie, Tyler Young, Samantha Logan, Javier Botet, Katie Stevens, Madelaine Petsch, Priscilla Quintana, Davi Santos, Keenan Tracey, Erika Prevost
Screenplay by: Blair Butler
Production Design by: Ken Rempel
Cinematography by: Pål Ulvik Rokseth
Film Editing by: Peter Gvozdas
Costume Design by: Martha Curry
Set Decoration by: Brian Enman
Art Direction by: Gina B. Cranham, Matt Likely
Music by: Philip Giffin
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence/terror, thematic elements, brief strong language, some teen drinking and drug material.
Distributed by: Vertical Entertainment
Release Date: October 11, 2019 (United States)
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