Lexi

An easy movie to misunderstand. It can easily be seen as a failed horror found footage film that doesn't really bring the scares. It was immediately obvious to me it was a mockumentary poking fun at found footage, more a dark comedy. It feels very modern, very contemporary with its take on influencers. Not great, but not bad. A decent watch.

Lexi is a found footage mockumentary that would be better received if it ditched its attempt at a horror thriller and really went all out as a crime comedy mystery. The small bit of comedy in this was the best part and I would've liked to had more intentional parts to laugh at.

I had seen another missing vlogger movie called The Case of: Dakota Moore and Lexi was basically just like that, only there was a real effort at production value on Lexi at least. The three interviewees on the film are the best actors, bringing authenticity to every line they delivered.

In addition to the desired comedy aspect, I disliked how repetitive the first hour was. This part could be 3 or 4x shorter and would've had just a much story told with tighter editing.

After she goes missing, a group of friends and fellow influencers discuss the strange circumstances about a popular positivity influencer who goes missing after posting a slew of weird content and the gradually darker nature of what happened to her is soon revealed.

On the whole, there's a lot to like here. One of the strongest features of this one comes from the wholly impressive setup that manages to tie up a rather intriguing setup for an engrossing mystery. The first half here deals with the idea of the normal part of her life that focuses on her positive outlook on life for her followers with enough of an impact on their lives with the tesitmonials that they give detailing how they manage to improve themselves after taking her advice that serves to get everything going rather nicely here. The slow-burn build to get an idea of what's going on with her as the few bits posted about the culture she's trying to establish with her fans creates a highly effective look at modern influencer culture as the whole personality she had built up is slowly shown to be sending up the obsession with these types of public figures' lives that are currently all the rage to add just enough of a hint of topicality to what's going on. That goes a long way to what's going on here as the investigation into her past starts to get revealed before the disappearance. That there's a solid slew of potential outcomes for what's the cause, as this goes from a potential stalker trying to infiltrate her life to a prank being committed to gain viewers or to being subjected to a supernatural entity preying upon her that lived in the house she just bought. As each of these scenarios is given plenty of time to work and feels realistic as the series of leaked security camera footage of her around the house shows someone trying to mess with the girl, and the interviews with the rival influencers point handily to the potential for her to be pulling everything off for a joke, and the discussions involving the deteriorating mental health that can easily be the result of a supernatural figure coming for her. This is an impressive factor of what's going on and helps to make this one incredibly fun. There are some minor drawbacks to be had here. Among it's main issues is an open-ended finale that won't appeal to everyone with how it all plays out. The idea behind this one is somewhat solid as the whole setup seems to provide the concept that with no one really knowing what happened to her or what the actual cause of the haunting afflicting her was about, the sense of not knowing what's going on is somewhat frustrating. That could've been resolved had the film chosen a cause of what was affecting her all along since there's several possibilities floated about so settling on a definitive cause could've alieviated this feeling. As well, there's also the expected low-budget origins of what's going on to contend with as the limitations imposed on it due to it's means of production are quite apparent and can make for a disappointing experience even though this isn't that bad and doesn't harm it all that much.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Full Nudity, and Mild Violence.

This ones a doozie. Just because you can make a movie doesn't mean you should. Some of the most cringe acting and setup I've seen, and I've gone down the Tubi rabbit hole. The woman playing Lexi is so frickin irritating. Every time she says "Lexicons" I wanted to pluck my own eye out. Poorly done and clearly a ripoff of much better indie films in this mock-style genre. Avoid at all costs.

Maybe it's the mock documentary genre, that I don't particularly like in general. I didn't find it well written in the sense that the angle some contributors take is unclear. I'm thinking of the older woman and the writer. However, the inclusion of some of lexis followers was quite nice to remind us of the particularities of her profession

Maybe it's the sometimes questionable acting. I found lexis manner quite exaggerated at times. Let's not speak of the fact that she's supposed to be 29... Her fellow influencer is not much better, always performing the exact same facial expressions for the camera.

Maybe it's the poor depiction of what influencers are nowadays. The quality of some of her videos was quite low, the editing was years old. What was shown clearly could not have earned her the movie she's supposed to have. Though the cyberbullying is nicely treated by Lexi herself, it is absent from the documentary entirely which I found too bad.

Or maybe it's the fact that it's not delivering what it's promising. It's labeled as a crime, there is technically no evidence of crime, especially if we follow the supernatural theory. Then it's labeled as horror but nothing much scared me. There were very few scenes who were supposed to in the first place and then the execution was rather un spectacular. Considering that it was a documentary, the only place for the scary stuff was the found footage part and it simply did not deliver. As a whole, it left me disappointed as I did not get what I came for.