Hard to watch, but not for the reasons you would expect.
I watched this over several sittings, since it just couldn't keep me focused. But I was still engaged with the general premise.
A social media influencer is doing a livestream while her friend is held captive by a villain. The villain instructs the influencer via text message, and if she doesn't do what he wants, he'll harm the friend.
That's a decent premise. Where the movie suffers is in the writing and the acting.
I'm willing to forgive acting, since this is clearly cheap, and made using whatever friends were available.
The writing is a problem. But again, it's not just the lines. It's actually the way that the story is developed.
Our protagonist has some major problems as a character. First, she's nice and plain. She's supposed to be an influencer. She needs to be charismatic. She needs to be exciting. Why would people be watching her livestream if she's just a nice little nobody?
Second, as a protagonist, she's passive. She obeys her commands without question, she doesn't try to solve her problem. The result is a story that turns into a gross-out comedy, where she rubs crap on her face and eats a raw fish. Her decisions have no consequences, because she's just agreeing to keep doing this.
Pacing is poor, since the actors seem to mostly be family and friends.
There's the "twist" ending, which is mostly forseeable. The killer makes an appearance, and it's mostly obvious who he is, and our protagonist comes across as a moron for not spotting it.
It's bad... but on the technical side, it's completely watchable. On the screenwriting side... more thought was needed.
Plot summary
Laura Diaz is an up-and-coming influencer under pressure by a VIP sponsor to give her best performance for a Halloween live stream giveaway. As the stream starts with a series of trivia questions, the night takes a creepy turn when a mysterious user comments on Laura's personal life. As Laura continues to open gift boxes from her sponsors, she soon discovers that some of the boxes have grotesque gifts inside of them. The mysterious user then texts Laura and explains that she will have to play along with his own sick game of giveaway, or else there will be a deadly price to pay.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
July 26, 2022 at 07:29 AM
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
Difficult to watch
Low Budget but Entertaining
The film is around an hour and 12 minutes, and it was mildly entertaining. It had a reasonable pace, with a suitable crescendo in plot but lacked acting skills and creativity. It was a bit silly at times, and also laughable, but not the worst thing I've seen. It is centred around a young woman who is trying to make it big in the social media world. With her manager putting pressure on her to land this big sponsor contract, Laura films a live show on Halloween, opening boxed gifts sent to her by her fans and sponsors. However, as the night draws on, and the boxes are being opened one by one, live on camera in front of thousands of viewers, things take a low budget, poorly acted turn...
I had to turn it off
The first few mins got me - and influencer gives a shallow, very fake thanks to her subscribers (it seems legit then she spits the stuff out off camera) for the gifts she receives from them, and then dies because she eats poison gummy bears someone sends her while she's live streaming. Or does she die? I dunno, they mention she just 'disappeared' even though she was foaming at the mouth like she had rabies.
Her acting was fine, but it just went downhill from here....
The acting of all the other cast members was SO BAD. It was like they were reading their lines directly off the screen. The sound was also all over the place. Someone would speak and it would be turned up so loud, and the others were normal volume standing right next to the loud one. Like their mics didn't work.
Do not recommend, I think I lasted maybe 10 mins tops.