Deadstream (2022)

 

Over twenty years ago, right around the turn of the century, MTV aired a show called Fear.  Fear was a paranormal investigative show where normal ham-and-eggers were brought in, given the proper equipment, and sent into a supposed haunted location to do paranormal investigations similar to those that would appear in Ghost Hunters today.  Now these people also were given dares to do like lie in a coffin for a certain amount of time or conduct a seance.  Whoever made it through three nights were rewarded with a cash prize.  It was a pretty good show, with Voodoo by Godsmack as the theme song!  How can you go wrong?  I still think about it today, and trust me it was creepy.  Deadstream feels a little like that to me.  The found footage movie is done in the style of a paranormal investigation of a haunted house.

 

 

Joseph Winter (High School Musical 2 and V/H/S/99) plays Shawn, a disgraced internet personality who attempts to stay the night in a haunted house.  Winter also wrote and directed along with his wife Vanessa.  The old house called "Death Manor" by the locals has quite a past.  A Mormon heiress lived there and committed suicide.  The woman was rumored to have put a curse on the house as several people have lived there since and all died mysteriously.  Inside the house Shawn finds a hamsa which is a charm that is supposed to protect a person or a place from evil.  Not knowing what it is, Shawn destroys it.  This leaves him open for a world of hurt.

This feels legit for the most part I mean at times I didn't feel like I was watching a movie but rather a paranormal investigation.  The only part that seemed a little questionable is he finds a trunk in the basement and it seems to have hardly any dust covering it as everything else in the basement has and it also seems to be too new to me.  Even the stuff inside which is supposed to be the original owners clothes seem in good shape for being over a hundred years old.  There's a little Blair Witch in here as well as some Evil Dead.  Some of it feels over done but I found it SURPRISINGLY GOOD!  Which is saying something for me because I usually hate found footage films.  This, my friends, is the exception to that rule.  The editing is detail oriented and the direction is on point in this.  So good that I want to know why all found footage films can't be this good.  My only complaint is even though I enjoyed it as good as it was I felt the ending could have been better.  I think it deserved a better ending but who knows, I'll take it.  This will get a shocking four creepy clown dolls out of five.  One of the best found footage films I've ever seen.