Milk & Serial

A friend recommended I watch this, and I'm really glad he did. In an age of vacuous YouTube influencers and vloggers, this is a brilliant concept: take the format that I personally find pretty repulsive, and spin it on its head by putting the iPhone in the hands of a Gen Z psychopath.

The whole thing sucks you in by being extremely believable, thanks to some eerily well acted early scenes. The twists keep coming and thanks to some really snappy editing this film hits you right between the eyes.

Like a found-footage version of Man Bites Dog, this is a really exciting find, which is completely free on YouTube. The fact that this thing is available on the very platform it is slyly critiquing is a brilliant twist in itself, however it's the plot developments in this short film that will have you watching it for a second time almost immediately.

Hollywood must surely beckon for the cast and director.

"Milk & Serial" is a 2024 found footage horror film that explores the dark side of online fame and the dangers of crossing lines for content. The film follows two roommates and social media influencers, Milk and Seven, who push the boundaries of their pranks to increasingly dangerous levels. When a birthday prank goes horribly wrong, the pair find themselves entangled in a terrifying and deadly game with a mysterious entity.

The film effectively uses the found footage format to create a sense of immediacy and realism, immersing the viewer in the escalating chaos. The performances are strong, particularly from Curry Barker who plays Milk, capturing the character's descent into obsession and desperation.

"Milk & Serial" is a chilling exploration of the thin line between entertainment and exploitation, and the consequences of prioritizing views and likes over human decency. It serves as a cautionary tale about the potential dangers of social media and the importance of ethical content creation.

Attempting a big social media prank, a group of friends try to continually get one over on each other as the experience draws them into the long-hidden psychopathic intuitions of one of the group's depressed past that sets them off into a race against time to stop their unhinged plans from coming true.

Overall, this was a solid enough indie genre effort. One of the finer aspects with this one is the engrossing and likable setup that features quite a lot of likable elements to it. The initial setup with the friend-group who are going around setting up the exploits of their channel and relationship with each other by setting up elaborate and harmful pranks on each other for a birthday surprise gets this established quite nicely so that the later exploits are far more believable. Not knowing whether or not the series of crazed incidents, from encountering the stranger in the apartment to the suicide attempts by the figure they come across, and the bizarre kidnapping scheme that quickly goes array, there's a genuinely thrilling and immersive experience that all builds up a fantastic showcase for the eventual devolution into insanity that comes about as how he treats his friends over time helps this out immensely. Beyond this, though, there's not much to this one that stands out. The type of setup featured here generating vicious and somewhat illegal pranks on people for the sake of views on their video channel makes the group so unlikable it's hard to get invested in what's going on with the friends barely being worth investing this much time into. As this is due to the prank-video nature of the channel so no one can be believed or trusted, that just adds even more to what's going on here There's also the fact that there's so many obvious instances in which psychotic behavior becomes quite underwhelming to see play out as too many obvious red flags are ignored for the sake of moving a story along that's quite cliche and familiar. As well as a lackluster finale that makes for so many rule-breaking moments of found-footage throughout here, these all manage to bring this one down overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.

I was unfamiliar with Curry Barker and his YouTube channel where he and his team have made several short movies in the past, however Milk & Serial had quite a lot of people talking and therefore I needed to check it out.

The movie is made with a a budget of $800, which is astonishing because they managed to make a pretty good movie, which was seriously entertaining and quite enjoyable overall. The acting was really convincing which surprised me because low budget productions often suffer from really bad acting, however Curry Barker, Cooper Tomlinson and the rest of the cast all do a commendable job. The movie offers quite some twists and therefore definitely is able to keep the audience's attention which also shouldn't be that big of a task with about an hour of runtime, however there were multiple moments where I was thrown off guard for a second because the story switched up. There are movies out there with similar themes so it's not completely original but nonetheless it managed to be quite unique with its narrative. Obviously there are no massive special effects or gruesome gore, but that kept the whole atmosphere really realistic, which is another element that worked really well. The found footage aspect, the believable acting and the realistic narrative really gave this movie a scarily realistic feeling. Obviously this movie was far from perfect and there are flaws as well, however I think they can be mostly overlooked and I would definitely like to see more from these young filmmakers. This was by far better than many of the latest Hollywood projects, especially when it comes to horror. However you have to keep in mind that this really low budget is the crucial argument for this movie's success and love. If you take away this aspect the movie is still a well done Horror-Thriller but nothing groundbreaking and while it grabs your attention in the moment, it lacks the depth to remain memorable. [5,6/10]

Is this movie amazing on its own? No, there are tons of better movies out there. Is it amazing considering it was made at home by non-professional filmmakers and on a very low budget? Yes, I don't think many people could pull this off. It's also better than some professionally made movies out there.

The only critique I can think of is that there are parts of it that feel slow or dragged out. But for the most part, it's an engaging, creepy movie with good actors, genuinely frightening/weird moments, and an interesting, well crafted plot. Not a huge fan of the found footage format, but it does it well.