Livestream

This was a film that I got the chance to see thanks to Shirly from Studio Dome. The Horror Collective picked this film up and a press release was sent to me. Confirming that this is a 2025 horror film was enough to check it out. I do enjoy these live streams based horror films, like Spree, Deadstream or Dash Cam. Other than that, I did come into this one blind to avoid spoiling.

Synopsis: as a team of live streamers embark on a haunted house challenge, they quickly realize that the scares may be more real than they anticipated. With each twist and turn, they must navigate through the terror to fight to survive the night.

Now I'll be honest about something. I didn't realize that this group of friends were going to this remote location for a 'haunted house challenge'. We start this with a cop having pulled over the car. Driving is Joss Myers (Mao Sun). He's an aspiring actor who is dating Mia (Sarah Moliski). She is livestreaming for their protection as the cop is being rude. He is Officer Heyes (Nicholas Edmunds). Knowing that he's being filmed, he does back off.

Joss questions Mia after they're allowed to leave. He doesn't like that she livestreams as much as she does. He gets it though as this is how she makes money, as an influencer. With them are a couple aspiring stand-up comedians who use social media for their popularity, Pedro Carvalho (Victor Soares) and Thomas (James Michael Cowan). There is also an artist, Nina Bloom (Giulia Nassa), who Pedro has a crush on.

They arrive at the cabin they're staying at and it looks amazing. It is owned by Anthony (Anthony Moore) and his wife, Lindsey (Nika Khitrova). They also have a shy daughter, Liza (Savannah Schakett). Her mother embarrasses her by revealing to Mia that Liza is her biggest fan. Our group then goes inside to get settled.

It is from here that we truly get to know our characters. Thomas is a jerk and he pushes buttons. There are multiple times that Mia has to cover up things that he says and point out she doesn't share those beliefs. Joss and him get into it as well. I get the feeling that this group doesn't necessarily like each other. Live streaming what they're doing does force people to put their internet persona. It is grating for Joss, but it also pays the bills.

Joss goes off to blow off steam while the rest of the group checks out the fire pit. It is here that Lindsey asks if Liza can hang out with them to which Mia confirms is cool. Things get tense here where Thomas gets hurt, or did he? This becomes a night none of them will ever forget and they truly learn how far away from everything they are.

That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start then is with a warning or an encouragement, depending on what you're into. I know people that love this take on the found-footage subgenre. We have the comments that are coming in as people are watching. I'll be honest, I had a difficult time focusing on both what is happening on the screen and with reading those. There are a couple of times that this does cool things with using the whole frame so I started focusing on it. Another aspect here is that this is more about a character study and less about the story. Keep that in mind when deciding to check this out.

Now that I've set that up, let's start with our lead character of Mia. She worked with a travel agency to get set up with this house. The family that owns it are excited as this should be good for business. I'd bet that it is rented out at a discounted rate in exchange for her live streaming as much of their time there as they can. I'll be honest though, I hated Mia. She comes off as a fake, but that's definitely by design as this explores the concept of 'influencers'. I will also credit Moliski in her performance for getting a reaction out of me.

To then explore her friend group, I don't feel they truly like each other. It seems more of a necessity for their respective brands. Joss doesn't want to hurt his image in becoming an actor. He cracks a few times that he just wants time with his girlfriend while also knowing that she has obligations. Thomas is a sellout. He resisted TikTok and then decided to get it, now he's got a bigger following. Pedro is in a similar vein but not as popular. The most grounded character is Nina. She doesn't do social media or is limited there. She is probably the most talented as well. Credit to Cowan, Nassa and Soares, who I realized is also the writer/director.

The last group of characters will be the family that owns the cabin. Anthony feels a bit over the top, but I think that is by design. I think we're supposed to be leery of how nice he is. Lindsey is more grounded and feels real in the fact that she accidentally embarrassed Liza without meaning to. We learn that Liza is also bullied at school. Mia does what she can to make her feel included. There is this odd scene about a boy named David who only comes around to mess with her. We get an interesting scene there that sets the stage as something that is off with a broken window. I also thought that Moore, Khitrova and Schakett were solid in their performances.

I'll then just finish this out with filmmaking. I do love this live streaming found footage concept that we get. This does fall short to ones that I've named earlier. It gets too busy for me trying to see what is going on in the frame, see if I'm missing anything while also reading the comments. It doesn't help that not much happens. I didn't know there was a haunted house angle until reading the synopsis, so I think that is a misstep not building that more. It focuses on this group and I don't like the characters. I picked up on what route they were going and that worked. Something to credit here is that we have limited effects. They were practical so good on them. It does feel like a live stream so that's another positive.

In conclusion, this one tries to do something that is becoming more popular in the horror genre with live streams. I enjoy the concept, but I do think that this film falls short due to lacking the story. The acting performances were good across the board. They all bring distinct personalities to their characters. I just don't personally like these characters. It captures the live stream well. I just needed more to get me invested and to work better unfortunately. I'd still recommend it if you like this subset for this filming style.

My Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

This is some taylor swift fans brand of horror. It's cheesy, morbidly cliche', utterly predictable complete with low budget performers. One word. Corny. I'm not going to include any spoilers but going into the movie I immediately figured out the plot in literally less than 3 minutes after they introduced certain charaters. From that point on I had to decide if I'd give it a chance. Sit until the end. Well, I almost made it. I just could not get with the overly zealous, feigned so called jump scenes not to mention it just made no sense. Perhaps a movie like this may sit well with soysagues and soy egg consumers but in the real horror world, this does not measure up to even be placed in the genre. At best, this may qualify as a thriller...without thrills.

It's not worth the watch. Really bad acting, but I can't tell if it was the actors fault or the writing was so bad that even the best actors would make this a bad movie. I don't know why people make "horror" and throw out second-grade common sense and force them to make and do stupid, non-realistic things throughout the movie. There are several moments that are stretched way too long for no reason, just to fill up the space to make it a longer movie. I guess their motivation was the Blair Witch Project, but they missed by a long shot. My suggestion is to actually rewatch what you made and be honest with yourself and ask the question, Would I rewatch this? Because the answer would be no. I will say the actor who was signing was on point a very good signer. The only thing in the movie that was enjoyable.

This is one of the worst moves I've ever had the displeasure of watching, though I could not watch till the end.

The entire movie consists of excruciatingly over-acted performances; the "characters" were grievously annoying and unlikeable. The synopsis has it that livestreamers embark on a haunted house challenge. Where did they suck that information from? Nothing in this "movie" suggested this. Just screaming, put-on performances trying to conceal the fact that herein lies no talent of any kind. I was so overjoyed that they all got their asses handed to them. They deserved it.

Utter, utter trash, in every conceivable way.

Heading out to a special house, a team of social media influencers streams their exploration of a haunted cabin, which will be perfect for their followers to watch them navigate and find themselves haunted by a series of past indiscretions, distracting them from the real threat in the house.

This was an utterly disappointing and underwhelming modern genre effort. The main focus is on some of the most vapid and annoying figures possible in this kind of scenario, with the hyper-excited, self-centered figures looking to ensure internet popularity at the sake of likability. There's very little about who they are, what they're at the house for, and the desire to keep the cameras recording on everything that happens at the house. Very few of the interactions here make for a fun time getting to follow them. It doesn't help that there's a constant stream of other unlikable factors that emerge over time with the group getting far more frayed with each other for lame indiscretions including secretly filming each other while trying to engage in private moments, using the shoot for ulterior motives without their knowledge, or just accusing each other of asinine factors that just don't make them all that easy to follow along. On top of that, there's so little actual point to labeling this a genre effort. The scares are nonexistent with everyone running around yelling at each other the way they do, the live one-take format grows old incredibly easily due to the lack of action preventing it with doing anything extravagant or outrageous, and the whole thing gets wrapped up with the most predictable of outcomes possible that renders any attempt at surprise or suspense void with the whole thing given away so the film doesn't have much genre interest going on. Further damaging everything is the layout on-screen, as the constant influx of messages and jabs by the commentators makes this a consistent headache trying to manipulate the on-screen action and keeping an eye on that to ensure there's nothing hidden away in the form of easter eggs to what's going on. By the time it finally clears up at the end, it's too little, too late to save this one with all these issues.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.