Resolution (Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, 2011)

5/10
There seems to be a disturbing trend in horror lately of movies that take a good premise, and build it to go absolutely nowhere. I think most immediately of Paranormal Activity, Hollow, and now Resolution.
The plot is solid, if unspectacular: crack addict Chris is squatting in a shabby shack in the woods, and his self-righteous, good-guy best friend Mike tracks him down and forces detox upon him by handcuffing him to the wall. A variety of troubling things occur - two junkies threaten Mike and Chris for drugs Chris owes them, a group of nasty looking Native Americans extract hush money from them when it's discovered that Chris' shack is on Native land, and most disturbingly, Mike keeps stumbling upon a variety of media (records, books, slides, CDs, VHS tapes) that depict events involving Mike and Chris that haven't happened yet. Through some murky plot detailing, Mike determines that the woods is home to some disturbing folkloric tales and they're part of the next story - and the woods is demanding a 'resolution'.
First-time directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead do a lot of things right - the handheld camera work lends a tense immediacy, the friendship between Mike and Chris is genuine, the performances are naturalistic, the woods are ominous enough, and the horror device (the mysterious media) is pretty cool, enough so to keep us interested. But that can only propel a horror movie desperately short on scares so far. It's kind of like being impressed by the direction in a comedy - I can appreciate good directing, but I want to laugh. Resolution has so many possibilities for great scares but frustratingly does nothing with them. It would be more accurate to say this is a buddy movie with something of a creepy/supernatural bent.
In all of the aforementioned slow-building but ultimately disappointing horror movies, there comes a moment where the tension dissipates as you pass from "wow they're really building this thing up slowly" to "wow, is anything ever going to happen?". Resolution does a lot of little things right but misses the big picture, and I can't recommend it for that reason.