When misfit teen Bird Fitcher (Kathryn Prescott) is gifted a polaroid camera, she starts taking pictures of her friends. Alas, this is a cursed camera and before long people start dying off, targeted by a monstrous entity in the order that a shadow appears behind them in the polaroid photo Bird takes of them. Think of it like Goosebumps' "Say Cheese and Die" spliced with "Final Destination", only it's devoid of humour, lacks interesting characters, and is the epitome of modern day visual drabness in horror movies. And did I mention the complete lack of blood and gore? Because this movie epitomises PG-13 toothlessness too, all jumpscares and blue ball cutaways. Maybe if the characters were worth spending time with, the absence of actual horror in this movie wouldn't be so big a problem, but these kids don't have a personality between them and there's no investment in their fate. If "Polaroid" isn't quite as bad as the similarly derivative and bland "Countdown" (also released in 2019), it's still almost aggressively mediocre and soulless. I will give it credit for one thing, however: casting Grace Zabriskie in a supporting role as a lore-dropping old woman with links to the camera's evil origin was inspired, and she's just great. Unfortunately, that's all the inspiration the movie has to offer.
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