- Directed by Joseph Winter, Vanessa Winter
- Written by Vanessa Winter, Joseph Winter
- Stars Joseph Winter, Melanie Stone, Jason K. Wixom
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NGnOyNhQ5w
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is an extreme case of an influencer doing a livestream for views that gets way too real and goes off the rails. The majority of the film is just Joseph Winter as Shawn, who does a good job with it. The supporting cast and special effects are all really good. There’s a lot of dark humor, and all in sum, it was a fun one to see.
Synopsis
Shawn is a livestreamer/YouTube guy who does a show where he confronts his greatest fears, one at a time. Except he’s been sued nearly into oblivion for a prank gone wrong. Now, he needs to make a big comeback. One fear that he hasn’t yet faced– ghosts. For his next event, he’s going to spend the night alone in a haunted house.
He goes to the most haunted house in the United States and will spend the night there. He’s very annoying and does everything we hate with livestreamers, including sponsorships. He doesn’t want to get scared and run away, so he sabotages his own car, throwing the spark plugs into the woods. He pries the door open and goes inside. Just so he doesn’t change his mind, he padlocks himself inside and throws away the key.
He explores the main floor of the house, and it’s about what you’d expect with garbage and graffiti. Three rooms of the house have actual, documented paranormal activity. He sets up little motion-activated cameras in various places. He explains the various ghost sightings of the past. One death was a tall man in the bedroom, another was a weird poet who hung herself in the stairway, and a whole family died in the upstairs bedroom. Then there was a death in the bathroom.
The chat people tell Shawn to provoke the spirits, and he aims to please. He tells us stories about Mildred the poet, who is still collecting the souls she could never have in life. He does a really poor summoning, and then runs away in fear even though nothing happens.
One of Shawn’s cameras shows a ghostly presence, and he totally flips out. His viewers call him a wimp on the chat, so he goes back to the spot to investigate. There are sounds, and the doors do things. Shawn screams like a little girl, but it turns out to be Chrissy, one of his viewers who tracked him down to meet him. The chat people want Chrissy to stay.
Before long, they find a secret passage with stairs going down. They go into the old cellar and find a trunk full of clothes and a little locked box. He also finds Mildred’s diary.
They pull out an Ouija board and have a try with that. Chrissy goes upstairs without Shawn, even after they had agreed not to split up. They argue, and she bites him. She stabs Chrissy in the neck, killing her in self-defense. Of course, her body isn’t there a minute later.
Before long, Shawn’s cameras start picking up things that he can’t see with his eyes. He finds the key to open the little box, and inside is a photo of Chrissy, who is really Mildred. It’s also got her finger in the box. Chrissy/Mildred appears in various places, and soon, Shawn jumps out an upstairs window to escape, breaking his leg badly in the process.
He limps to his car but has trouble finding the spark plugs in the trees; there are other things in the trees. Various people from the Internet send videos that give him information about the house and make suggestions.
Shawn reads some of the diary, and he finally figures out what Mildred really wants— an audience. He asks his own audience for help translating the words; he plans to… demonetize her, just like a failed YouTube channel. He goes back inside and uses the stuff he can find laying around to battle the ghosts.
Shawn really is kind of an idiot. Who does he think is the real influencer here?
Commentary
It’s very suspenseful. Five minutes into the film, Kevin said that he hoped Shawn would die a painful death, which I think was intentional. Shawn is really annoying, but he’s very realistic. Actually, it’s done so well that you start rooting for him the longer the movie goes on, and he does get less annoying and more relatable.
The ghosts and things are creepy and believable, and things escalate nicely.
It’s funny, dumb, and really effective.