Log 15 Review: Sebastian Dove's Mind-Bending Horror

Cayley (Meg Moynahan) is watching her mother (Jeanne Scurek) slip away to Alzheimer's, and she's not handling it gracefully. Desperate, she throws herself into radical, ethically dubious experiments aimed at unlocking the human mind - documenting every step of the way like a scientist-slash-vlogger hybrid. Enter Dr. Quinn Adler (Stephen R. Miller), a researcher whose work gives Cayley the intellectual scaffolding she needs, and Tony (Jeff Ronan), who fills in as the grounded voice of reason - or at least tries to. But here's the hook: the footage Cayley is recording starts to fight back. What she captures on camera doesn't just document her reality - it rewrites it. Memory and recording blur together until she can't tell which version of events is the "real" one.

Dove is clearly playing in the sandbox of The Blair Witch Project and Lake Mungo, but Log 15 has more on its mind than shaky-cam scares. This is a film about the terror of forgetting and the arrogance of trying to force the human mind to behave. The premise - recording as a reality-warping act - is the kind of high-concept idea that could collapse under its own weight, and credit where it's due: at 75 minutes, Dove keeps it tight, propulsive, and refreshingly mean.

Moynahan carries the whole thing on her shoulders, and she's terrific - frazzled, obsessive, sympathetic even when she's crossing every line in the book. Scurek's mother is heartbreaking in the quiet moments, a reminder that the real monster here is the disease. Miller and Ronan round things out effectively, though the script doesn't always give them enough to chew on.

The real MVP is the sound design and editing. The film weaponizes repetition, drop-outs, and glitchy cutaways to make you question what you just saw, which is exactly the point. There are moments - especially in the back third - where the footage-bending conceit pays off in genuinely skin-crawling ways.

Where it stumbles is ambiguity run amok. Dove is so committed to leaving things unexplained that a few reveals land more confusing than chilling. A tighter hand on the mythology - just one or two more concrete anchors - would've made the finale hit harder. Also, fair warning: the "found footage" gimmick takes some patience in the first act. If you need clean answers, this movie will frustrate you. If you enjoy arguing about a film in the parking lot afterward, you're in for a treat.

Pros

• Meg Moynahan delivers a fearless, fully committed lead performance
• The reality-rewriting concept is genuinely fresh and unsettling
• Tight 75-minute runtime that never drags
• Clever sound design and editing that gets under your skin
• Alzheimer's angle gives the horror real emotional weight

Cons

• The mystery becomes so opaque that it borders on frustrating
• Supporting characters feel underdeveloped
• The first act's slow-burn setup may test some viewers' patience

Log 15 is the definition of a grower: a scrappy, cerebral horror flick that will alienate some and absolutely hook others. It's not a perfect film - the script occasionally confuses "mysterious" with "vague" - but it's ambitious, genuinely creepy, and anchored by a hell of a lead turn. For horror fans craving something that actually respects their intelligence and their patience, this is one experiment worth volunteering for. Bring a friend, because you're going to want to argue about that ending.