Skill House arrives as yet another indie horror project clawing its way into a limited theatrical release via Fathom Events, hoping to join the growing list of low-budget gems tapping into our digital age paranoia. But while films like Spree, Stream, and Dark Game found ways to blend horror and online culture with raw energy, Skill House stumbles over its own premise with frustrating execution and a lack of, well... anything to root for.
The film centers on 10 top-tier influencers who wake up in a hellish streaming nightmare, kidnapped, trapped, and forced to participate in a brutal, live streamed social media survival game. It's the kind of setup that screams modern slasher gold: commentary on fame obsession, influencer culture, and viral notoriety, with blood and body count to match. Unfortunately, the execution is more cringe than clever.
Right from the start, the movie kneecaps itself.
Before the first frame even rolls, a well-meaning intro by director Josh Stolberg and one of the stars essentially spoils the ending. In a genre built on tension, misdirection, and surprise, this was a huge misstep-especially for a theatrical experience where the unknown is half the thrill. It's a head-scratcher of a move and sadly, the movie never quite recovers from it.
The characters? Disposable and annoying-by design. You're not really supposed to like anyone in Skill House, and that's part of the point. These are influencers engineered for maximum social media toxicity. But unlike the Netflix reboot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where hating the cast made their deaths gleeful crowd pleasers, here it just results in apathy. There's no rooting interest, no investment, no memorable personalities just a series of TikTok shaped placeholders wandering from trap to trap.
A good slasher lives and dies on three pillars: the killer's look, the quality of the kill bait, and the kills themselves. Skill House fumbles two out of three. The killer's mask a clumsy, derivative riff on the Brandon James mask from Scream: The TV Series, feels like an afterthought. The kills? Outside of one genuinely creative and brutal moment (which I won't spoil), they're largely forgettable. I had to genuinely think back to recall any of them, which is never a good sign for a film promising carnage.
The dialogue is intentionally obnoxious, playing up influencer stereotypes and Gen-Z speak, but it wears thin fast. The script introduces some interesting ideas a global audience watching the bloodshed, other streamers reacting in real time, the commodification of violence but none of these threads are explored with any real depth. You can feel the influence of better films like Stream and Dark Game, but Skill House doesn't carve out its own identity. It's less a love letter to horror and more a mashup of viral culture buzzwords with blood spatter.
Skill House is not offensively bad, just frustratingly forgettable-a missed opportunity in a time when horror needs bold voices with something to say.
