The Den is a 2014 horror movie about Elizabeth Benton, a university student who is writing her graduate thesis on the habits of online video chatters. After logging onto a site known as ''The Den'', Elizabeth witnesses a murder. She quickly becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth behind what she saw, only to find the killers coming after her and her loved ones.
This film provides examples of:
- Apocalyptic Log: The entire film.
- The Bad Guy Wins: It's costly, though, as Elizabeth kills or severely injures several of the killers before they finally take her down.
- Bland-Name Product: The Den is a clone of Chatroulette.
- Cassandra Truth: Elizabeth spends most of the movie trying to convince those around her something bad is going on, but everyone either ignores her concerns or dismisses her as overreacting.
- The Cracker: The killers have a fair amount of skill at hacking other people's computers and accounts as well as sending viruses.
- Downer Ending: Elizabeth is murdered by the gang of killers, who are revealed to have done this hundreds of times before, and it's implied that they plan to do the same to the British woman who witnesses Elizabeth's death. And the ending where a man pays to watch the killers stalk, harass, and eventually kill the woman implies that
they don't plan on stopping anytime soon. - Hope Spot: During the film's climax Elizabeth steals one of the gang's cars and seems to be in the clear until they broadside the fleeing vehicle with a truck and re-capture the now unconscious Elizabeth.
- Implacable Man: Invoked but averted. Elizabeth stabs the killer to death, but he later attacks her anyway. It turns out that the killer is actually a whole group of people, and she kills several more later on.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Elizabeth's sister and her unborn child are the only survivors among Elizabeth's loved ones, albeit only because the attackers are interrupted.
- In-Universe Camera: The entire film is shown from the perspective of Elizabeth's webcam, cellphone camera, and a Go-Pro at the end.
- Jerkass Has a Point: After Elizabeth witnesses the online murder, she attempts to inform the police. Naturally, she's completely brushed off, but the officer does point out that most of the 'murders' witnessed online are fake and there isn't any reason to believe this one is not. Additionally, even if it was real, they still don't know where or when the murder took place.
- Killer Cop: One of the snuff film ring is either a police officer or a crime scene technician and retrieves the camera used in the attack on Elizabeth's sister under the ruse of collecting it as evidence.
- Malevolent Masked Men: The killers all wear Scarecrow-esque burlap masks.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: The killer stages Jenni's death to be a suicide by using her e-mail account to send Elizabeth a suicide note.
- murder.com: At the end, the killers are shown to work for one that is essentially a premium porn site with Snuff Films instead of sex.
- Paranoia Fuel: The premise of the movie. Someone could decide to stalk you for no reason other than seeing you online. They could be watching you from anywhere, and they can be anyone.
- Plot-Triggering Death: The murder of an Indian girl known only as "Pyagrl*16" starts Elizabeth's story in motion. Her own live online murder is this at the end for another woman.
- Rasputinian Death: Elizabeth, who is beaten and mauled by a series of different attackers before being injured in a car wreck, strangled, and finally shot in the head execution style.
- Schmuck Bait: At one point, Elizabeth's boyfriend has disappeared, but his online account is still active and sending her sinister messages. She is then sent a link by this aforementioned account, which supposedly will tell her what happened to her friend. She clicks it . . . and her computer is immediately wiped clean.
- Shout-Out: Someone being chained up in an abandoned bathroom with a mechanical device strapped to their head and being menaced by a masked villain who turns out to have several accomplices is a reference to Saw.
- Snuff Film The ultimate goal of the killers is to create snuff films, which they sell online.
