Tubi Tuesday: Infrared (2022)

“Infrared” is a humble but somewhat effective found footage-style movie with spooky locations, high-quality acting, and a watchable pace.

So, it turns out that old Nirvana song with the lyrics, “I wish I was like you: Easily amused,” which I often quote when one of my kids being all-too entertained by something I find to be shallow or silly, applies to their old man at least as much, if not more so.

For here I go again on my own, watching a found footage supernatural horror movie after dark, and I am enjoying the shit out of myself. I’m also scaring the shit out of myself…and no, it really doesn’t take much.

Scout yourself a creepy enough location, and all you need to do is dim the lights, slam a few doors, make a couple of loud noises, and I’m sold. You add some decent demonic shit, and it’s Popcorn City.

The movie is about a paranormal investigation show called Infrared.

It opens with a large serving of cringe as we are treated to a half-assed exorcism. But soon, it transitions from the hokey suburbs to darker climes, where we are treated to found footage of a mystery woman and her camera operator going into an abandoned school that is supposedly haunted.

The feel of this segment is completely different from the opening sequence and does a nice job of setting a scary tone.

Then it’s time for some character introduction and exposition.

We meet a paranormal investigator named Izzy (Leah Finity, Black Rabbit), who is the former partner (and sister) of Wes (Jesse Janzen, Cry Wolf), the host of Infrared and the exorcist from the opening scene. We find out that they parted ways when Wes started focusing more and more on the darker side of the paranormal, such as demonic possession.

The scenes keep flip-flopping back and forth between footage of Wes and his sister visiting different separate locations to offer their services, with a camera crew in tow, of course.

This keeps the action moving along and gives the characters something to do as the audience is introduced to their distinct personalities until finally, Wes and Izzy are reluctantly reunited for, wouldn’t you know it, a tour of the abandoned school.

Wes continues to be a bit of a pushy dick, lacking self-awareness when dealing with the landlord (Greg Sestero, Big Shark, Cyst, The Room – yes, THAT The Room, which explains a lot) and continuously displaying obvious jealousy-based negativity towards Izzy.

But finally, she talks him up and gets him to move forward with the show. And sure enough, a few minutes later, we are treated to a mysterious bump in the distance as Wes parades in front of the camera with his PKE meter. Then Izzy starts experiencing a disturbance in the ether – classic stuff.

By this point, we are well past the halfway mark and have only a few minutes of scares to show for it.

This ghost hunter crap reminds me of when I tagged along with a group of them and wound up at the bar a couple of buildings down from the location they were investigating.

When they were done screwing around in the old building, a bunch of them came in and sat a couple of tables down from me, and I couldn’t help myself from loudly asking as the waiter approached their table, “What kind of SPIRITS do you have?”

Apparently, ghost chasers take their shit seriously, so all I got were some stern looks, but my buddy and I were laughing for the rest of the evening.

But back to our featured presentation.

Izzy wants to leave after her psychic disturbance, but the show’s producer convinces her to stick around for her brother’s sake. And it’s a good thing because they find the cameras from the original mystery woman who visited the school, and they discover (sort of) what happened to her.

A bunch of loud noises and empty rooms later, and we’re into the film’s last ten minutes.

Something better happen soon…oh! And it does!

But I ain’t tellin’ you shit! You’re going to have to watch it yourself.

Just remember this: LONG setup, SHORT payoff.

But that’s okay. It worked for Blair Witch, it worked for Paranormal Activity, and it works, mostly, for Infrared.

Let’s be frank; this is not a good movie. It’s a movie that’s been done way better dozens of times before. That said, as I mentioned earlier, I am a sucker for a bunch of jump scares in a creepy location.

So, if you’re like me, it’s definitely worth a watch. And you can’t go wrong since it’s free on Tubi. Check it out.