Skillhouse

Skillhouse fits the bill for an all around decent and entertaining watch - imagine influencers trapped within a mansion in LA Saw style with 50 Cent as the Jigsaw figure, it's as awesome and hilarious as it sounds.

Dialog and acting aside some nitpicking scenes of underwhelming responses is nothing to complain about. Kills, gore and progression isn't terrible nor a complaint either. The pacing is akin again, to saw, characters getting picked off, some suspense on who's next and thensome with some pretty successful comedy thrown in. Overall nothing entirely unique or groundbreaking, but works heavily with the content it aims to tackle - that being a dark, comedic whodunit with Saw tropes sprinkled about. Watch this film if you want something to laugh at, something to enjoy with some friends or something to bluntly enjoy; 50 Cent as a Jigsaw, despite his recent attempts to sue is worth watching. Post credit sequence and all.

This 2025 film by Josh Stolberg with a brief appearance of the rapper, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson... just really bombed. No wonder there's been much legal disputes behind this production. Its storyline and satire seems very-aimed towards Gen Zers and committed to social media, live streaming and content makers. Its location was a typical, non-descript "Hollywood", L. A. mansion guessing to set the storyline in a place of celebrity worship.

All characters are just so vapid, that each when killed off - makes viewers feel apathetic with every gore, ultraviolent scene. Its gore effects are a combination of CGI, probably AI with some practical effects. It offers nothing new and plays like "Johnny-come-lately" to the idea of "slasher" genre and social media. Even late Y2K-era Reality TV-inspired and primal ether-streaming era "Halloween Resurrection" (2002) featured TV-iconic Tyra Banks and rapper, Busta Rhymes seems avant garde (pre-social media culture) compared to this. Maybe with the "participation" of Jackson, the production staff could have its narrative involved an strong Hip Hop cultural element.

Most of the theatrical releases are connected with Fathom ticketing. This expensive service tends to give these baseless intros with actors or the director. Or if one's lucky a "behind-the-scene" segment is inserted after the film end credits.

I say... unless you aren't into the "influencer" subculture (or an avid fan of 50 Cent) and not a clueless Gen Zer, maybe avoid this flick. Wishing I could say that this film is "so bad that it's good!" but it's not. It offers plot twists but these only work with some decent acting chops, none here.

Supposedly some of the killed off cast members are known popular content makers like Bryce Hall but none that I "really" recognize even follow (ol' skooler here). The only strong actor in this entire film, is the occasional TV actor, Neal McDonough! He helmed the role of a questionable police officer and often remembered from comedic appearances in TV shows like the late 90s "Just Shoot Me".

In the end, the storyline seemed to be lost in between trying to be a Black comedy or "Meta" or "Slasher" genre Horror. Hopefully, some viewers will find this entry as entertaining material but unfortunately upon observing its film reviews reveal it's actual merit.

Skillhouse (2025) is a horror movie written and directed by my close personal friend from Twitter, Josh Stolberg and it was okay.

Positives for Skillhouse (2025): The concept of this movie is pretty good and I got a lot of mileage out of it. The kills are surprisingly good with some good practical effects. The acting from the cast is pretty okay for the most part. And finally, you can get some dumb fun entertainment from this as a dumb horror movie.

Negatives for Skillhouse (2025): The dialogue from some of the characters is rough to listen to. The characters are just meat bags who you want to see die in brutal ways and you can't root for them. And finally, the movie feel limited by its low budget.

Overall, Skillhouse (2025) is an okay enough but very entertaining indie horror movie that you need to turn your brain off to enjoy.

There are very few movies I actively despise. And yet, here we are, with Skillhouse.

The premise is familiar: a group of social media influencers are kidnapped and placed in a house where they must kill each other to survive. It's Saw meets Big Brother, with some half-hearted stabs at satire. It's painfully clear this movie doesn't understand the world it's trying to comment on. It gives "hello fellow kids", like it was made by someone who is aware of social media but can only relate it to traditional media like TV.

Maybe I'm too close to the subject, but as someone who's been creating content online for over 15 years, so much of this movie's details are irritatingly inaccurate. Maybe it will resonate with Uncle Larry on Facebook who needs something to reinforce his opinion that influencers are all vapid individuals. Skillhouse honestly feels like it was made by someone who wanted to tell a story about influencers but doesn't actually watch their content. The characters act like they're on a local TV news broadcast, constantly signing on and off in ways no actual influencer would. "Hey everybody! This is Rachel, coming to you live from the skillhouse!" The "content" they produce just feels off.

Little details are laughable and annoying. We're constantly seeing people watching this TikTok clone livestream. When they are watching on their phones it's in vertical format, but people watching on laptops are watching a full horizontal image. Huh?

At one point, a character "hacks" a phone by taking it apart with random tools she found in the skillhouse (where?) and manages to view unedited video footage that's posted online. Yeeeah...

Oh, she does this with full knowledge that the "rules" state that you will die if you try something like this. Did I mention she was the sciency Asian girl? The film is filled with stereotypes, including a ridiculous, overly emotional and flamboyant gay character. Were the filmmakers trying for this level of cringe?

There are cameras mounted all around this house, so someone has to be producing this elicit livestream and switching all the cameras in real time. Is there a team involved in this production? And some of the camera angles and closeups shown in the livestream can't possibly be from any of these cameras.

At one point, a character watching the livestream uncovers the identity of the kidnapper by basically "zoom-and-enhancing" a car's license plate in the background of a video. She's able to simply use a website called "reverselicenseplatelookup.com" to get all the details. OMG stop.

Setting aside social media, I'm not even sure the writer understands how the internet works. But all of this would be fine if the movie took itself playfully or was self-referential. I can suspend pretty much all disbelief when it's clear the film is tongue-in-cheek.

But the worst part is how uniformly awful, shallow, cruel, stupid, and utterly unrelatable all the characters are. ALL of them. There is not one redeeming character. I just wanted them all to die. Maybe not every film needs a hero, but there needs to be at least ONE person I can identify with. Someone to relate to in even the tiniest way. Nothing.

Even 50 Cent, who appears only in pre-recorded footage, seems like he was duped into participating and didn't even know what he was involved in. (Strange, considering the similarity to the 50 Cent "character" he's playing.) I read where he sued the producers of Skillhouse to prevent its release. Is that true? I don't know. I started to Google it but lost interest, kind of like this movie.

One character, intended as the film's "hero," I guess, is dropped into the story with zero backstory. Her detective work is implausible and laughable, and her presence never changes the narrative stakes.

The film tries to be horror but delivers zero suspense. The gore is average at best. The villain, basically a Jigsaw ripoff, uses a voice distorter like Screamface in Scream, but half the time it was so distorted, I literally couldn't understand what he was saying.

The only moment of relief comes when veteran actor Neal McDonough appears in the third act. He brings a gravitas and a little bit of fun the movie doesn't deserve, but his subplot goes nowhere.

It's supposedly a satire, but what exactly is it satirizing? Influencers? Fandom? Viral culture? ("Oooh...whoever gets the most views will survive!" Gee whiz, that really makes ya think.) Whatever message Skillhouse is trying to send gets lost in a mess of clichés, stereotypes, and baffling creative choices. It takes itself too seriously to be camp and too shallow to be insightful. There is nothing fun or funny. It's just annoying.

Ugh...I paid $22 to see this at a Fathom Events theatrical screening. There is no way this is going to be distributed in cinemas beyond this. My guess is you can watch it in Tubi in a few weeks. Honestly, if I did happen to watch this on Tubi, I would have bailed after about 30 minutes.

I adore "bad" movies, exploitation flicks, and schlock cinema: it's my thing. But those films often come with a certain charm and scrappiness to them. I mean, technically Skillhouse is well made. The lighting and stuff is quite competent. But that's not why I enjoy movies.

I commend the filmmakers for hiring a couple of actual influencers to play the lead roles, but being an influencer is quite different from being an actor.

Skillhouse is one of those rare movies that earns a 6 rating from me, and only because it exists. (My rating system ignores 1-5 because it's a monumental achievement to get any movie made, and nobody sets out to make a bad movie.) This one just pushed all the wrong buttons with me.

If you're looking for a smart horror film made by real content creators, go watch Bring Her Back by the Philippou brothers released a couple months ago. They came from YouTube, and they understand their audience. Skill House misses every single mark. It's not scary, not clever, not funny, and not worth your time.

Interesting premise for a movie but it tends to feel like its copying from the saw movies.

I thought a lot of the acting was a bit wooden and the set and costume design felt really cheap.

However, Bryce Hall is the man, I love him very much!

I heard the guy who produced this is the same guy who kicked off the marvel franchise, which would explain why it is produced so well.

It is however a shame that the producer is targeted so much by a youtuber who will try and get his audience to review bomb the movie.

Although, I did enjoy watching it while drinking wine, I did have a bit too much wine but I didn't get wet and reckless.