‘Ratter’ dir. Branden Kramer
The advancement of technology has made the world a smaller place than ever, bringing people from all over the globe together in a thriving community where information can be retrieved with the swipe of a finger. The ability to see and interact with friends and loved ones can be achieved almost instantaneously through our cell phones and web cams. With this rapid integration of technology into our personal lives comes the fear that some of this private information is also seen by others.
Brandan Kramer’s Ratter takes the idea of invading one’s privacy through tech and turns it into a very real nightmare that will make you want to put tape over those tiny cameras on your phone.
A Ratter is a type of hacker who uses a remote access trojan (RAT) to infiltrate victims’ computers or mobile devices and access their data and camera. The premise behind Kramer’s film is that a young grad student, played by Ashley Benson, has become the target of one of these hackers, and we the viewer witness first hand how scary something like this could be.
The entire film is presented through cameras on the victim’s phone, computer, tablet, and maybe even her Kinect. This technique isn’t something completely new; we saw it in V/H/S and more recently in Nacho Vigalondo’s Open Windows, but it was still an effective use of the mechanic, and nearly all the angles shown could be logically explained, which helps to keep the audience immersed in the story.
While I had a rough time looking past the technological leaps in Open Windows, it’s much easier to justify what happens in Ratter as something that could feasibly happen in reality. This makes the unease and dread all the more palpable as we begin to believe this could happen to us, at any time for any reason.
Like many thrillers of this ilk, Ratter is a slow burn, taking its time to fully develop the players involved and making sure there’s an adequate amount of built-up tension. Unfortunately, also like many other similarly structured films, the payoff is disappointing and anti-climactic. There is a post-credits sequence that shows a bit more but not enough to make it fulfilling.
That being said, this is still an entertaining and suspenseful ride that kept me guessing as to what this creepy stalker would do next. Benson’s character, Emma, does all the right things after the strange occurrences begin. She tells her friends; she calls the police; she changes her passwords. But the most frightening thing about this story is that it didn’t matter; her fate was sealed.
Despite the lackluster ending, Ratter proves to be an effective and creepy slow-burn thriller. The visual mechanic of using the webcams and cell-phone cams works surprisingly well, and although the story teeters very close to the generic found-footage claptrap we’ve been seeing all too much of lately, this manages to surpass those tired tropes by delivering a suspenseful cautionary tale that is worth a look.
