. It's a cheat, really, and sometimes the movie's explanations for why there just happens to be a video camera present at particular moments are a bit strained, but mostly it feels clever; you appreciate the filmmakers' ballsy (and mostly successful) attempt to tell a story in which big, impossible things happen on a shoestring budget.
The story is classic origin myth: Three teenagers — lonely loner with a crappy home life Andrew (Dan DeHaan), his well-meaning cousin Matt (Alex Russell), and charismatic high school king Steve (Michael B. Jordan) — are at a barn party one Friday night and discover a hole in the ground from which mysterious, otherworldly noises are emanating. Matt and Steve, drunk and stoned and feeling daring, have brought Andrew along on this little exploration because he has a video camera and, kids being what they are these days because of the YouTube and whatnot, they want to make sure they get this on tape. So the boys scramble down into this hole and find what we can only guess is some kind of meteor. It pulsates strange light, when they get close to it their noses start to bleed, and suddenly there is a bright flash and the camera clatters to the ground and cuts out. Are they dead? No, of course, not. They're -y stuff, exactly the kind of thing three American teenage boys would likely first attempt with these newfound abilities. Only Andrew, with his dark and intense stare, can do something the other two can't: He stops the ball in mid-air before it hits him. It hovers there while the three laugh with giddy awe and blood trickles out of Andrew's nose. The nosebleeds are an annoying symptom, something that might tell them they're going too far, straining their brains or whatever they're...