Many films try to strike a balance between horror and comedy, usually shortchanging one or the other. A good balance is difficult and leaning too far either direction potentially loses half the audience. So it is impressive the first feature of writer/director duo Joseph and Vanessa Winter manages to strike a nigh-perfect mix between the two. Joseph plays an obnoxious caricature of every viewer-thirsty youtube personality, mugging for the camera, playing to his base, and making poor life choices. Shot as the character’s live-stream, Winter absolutely sells he is the type of individual to risk death, disgrace, and his potential soul damnation in order to increase his viewer numbers. He’s abrasive, arrogant, immature and unrepentantly in poor taste with commentary whose obnoxious voice never, ever, shuts up, but he is genuinely funny, and once the frights begin his terror is comedy gold. There is a lot of silliness behind this film, playing with genre tropes, expectations, and watching his hilarious reactions to increasingly intense and horrific events. Both the comedy and horror elements seem to grow at the same pace, and scares themselves turn out to be quite well done, original and clever and not simply resorting to cheap jumps or discordant cues. Unfortunately, some of the humor is forced and doesn’t land, and a number of the social media elements might be dated or dying. The main character will assuredly grate on some, but that’s by design and definitely part of the joke. Some of the practical effects are quite good, but a number do fail miserably. Found footage films tend to be polarizing, but the director wields the gimmick effectively, and a rather short runtime allows an effective pace adds another entry to Shudder’s growling library of fun and quality horror films.
Deadstream (2022)