Casey (Anna Cobb) is a young girl who spends most of her time alone in her room making internet videos. One day, the bored dolt does one of those dumb internet challenges, which I guess is supposed to be the latest variation on the Tide Pod Challenge. If you ask me, any movie that asks us to sympathize with a character who is stupid enough to participate in a dumb internet challenge is already starting off on the wrong foot.
The challenge is kind of like a rip-off of “Bloody Mary” where you prick your finger, watch a weird internet video, and then say, “I’m going to the World’s Fair”. Then, you’re supposed to “change”. After Casey does the challenge, she hangs out in her room and passes the time by watching internet videos.
NOTE TO FUTURE FILMMAKERS: Don’t put a scene of your character mindlessly watching an online ASMR video in its entirety in the middle of your movie when your movie is already a snoozer to begin with. Your audience is bored enough as it is. They don’t need any more help falling asleep.
Then, we cut to some creepy ass dude (Michael J. Rogers) who watches Casey’s videos and may know more about the “World’s Fair” challenge than he lets on. When they finally have a conversation on Skype, he disguises his voice so most of the dialogue is unintelligible. It was here when I started to mentally check out of the movie.
It gets worse from there. We see some of Casey’s internet videos, which are bad enough. However, somehow, we get connected to Casey’s YouTube playlist, which plays an unending loop of lame internet videos. I know it was asking too much for me to sympathize with a character who takes dumb internet challenges but asking me to sympathize with someone who leaves their YouTube on random is a bridge too far.
Like most Shaky Cam movies, you have to sit through a LOT of bullshit before you finally find out where it’s all going. I guess I don’t have to tell you that when we learn what the “World’s Fair” nonsense is all about, it’s disappointing as fuck. The scariest part is the scene where the creepy internet dude takes a shit, and they show him on the can in an unbroken take that lasts an eternity. You know you’re in trouble as a filmmaker when the only semi-effective scene you can pull off is showing some rando internet creep pinching a loaf.
I can sympathize with a character who likes random Youtube playlists and Anna Cobb does
ReplyDeletea decent job, my issue is the film is so fucking boring, hardly anything happens, it's not much better than those crappy "Unfriended" movies. The shaky-cam was annoying and it might as well have been a found-footage film.