The only real change nowadays is that the camera shakes far more than fright-seekers in the audience since they have seen so much of this before.

It is too bad "The Den"—which refers to a web-cam chat site based on a service called Chatroulette, where you can switch from user to user randomly—doesn't better capitalize on its somewhat nifty setup. Helping matters considerably is debut director Zachary Donohue's choice of leading lady as his heroine, Elizabeth. Melanie Papalia looks like "Glee"'s Lea Michele and acts just the way you'd think a privileged Millennial grad student would if they convinced someone to give them a grant to study web cams for a social media thesis. She's smug, overconfident as heck and more than a little into interacting with others from a distance.

I also admire any woman who bothers to wear lipstick even though she works from home.

Basically, Elizabeth is getting paid to sit in front of her computer all day while watching all manner of humanity from around the globe in various stages of dress and undress do everything from engaging in polite conversation and posting videos of rude puppets to sharing suggestive comments and dancing in bikini drag. Or, as one of her subjects tells her, "Good luck with the whole Jane Goodall thing."

Except for the lack of cute animal clips, this is what most people do for free.

Speaking of which, I found that watching "The Den" on my own computer actually became a cool meta experience since it appeared as if Elizabeth's screen was my screen. Because of being tied to her project 24-7, she communicates to her boyfriend, her friends and pregnant sister almost exclusively through some kind gadgetry, which gives her every relationship a voyeuristic vibe. But the effect soon dissipates once her computer is hacked and suddenly it appears she is witnessing an actual murder taking place.

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