Lexi

"Crime/Horror" is mislabeling. The horror elements are tertiary at best; There's no grizzled old cop with a secret trying to solve a cold case on the last day before retirement. The framework seems to be about having fun with the found footage genre and influencer social saturation versus derisively making fun of it. I don't notice any character type depicted in a mean spirited light.

There's nothing bombastic in the range of look or performance. The interviewees are purposely singularly absurd in their viewpoint but measured delivering their kooky theories. It's not slap stick but nothing close to subtle either. It's pretty good acting but it might be a little off putting if you are in the mood for something a bit more overt.

A movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat, you can feel the love Victoria puts into Lexi, and the crafting of the character. Strongly Recommend.

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.

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.

Lexi was a lot better than the usual found-footage trash you'll find on Tubi. The faux-mockumentary approach actually works in its favor, and the absence of unnecessarily shaky cam and a negligible reliance on jumpscares add to its positives. There's also an interesting discussion about how modern-day content creators are looked at, beyond their channels and platforms. The perceptions vary, especially in a world that's interested more in seeing people's downfalls than successes. In the world of content creation, phrases like "controversy creates cash" and "trauma/sex sells" are commonly heard. This also makes it hard to differentiate what's raw & real and what isn't.

The actual horror part of the film is also only subtly put across. They never show an outright entity or person that results in Lexi's descent into paranoia. It lies in the unseen, the unheard. The actress playing Lexi - let's forget she's referred to as a 29-year-old because that's BS - but her expressive eyes had me hooked. Every time she was directly facing the camera, it had a bit of a spooky effect on me. Her performance, while a bit overboard in the final act, was pretty solid overall. The ending leaves it ambiguous; we don't get to hear from Lexi's friend who keeps texting her, or Lexi's mother, and from a writing perspective, I guess that was a miss.