#ChadGetsTheAxe was a comedy horror film that I suspected I might find insufferable from the cover image alone. Directed, edited, produced, and co-written by Travis Bible, this was a feature length version of his 2017 short film of the same name. What was included here was surprisingly interesting, and really felt modern, giving a lot of incidental critical commentary on the nature of social influencers. While it definitely had moments of nearly laugh out loud humour, this also had moments of genuine horror, always appreciated.
Four social influencers have agreed to team up to do a night time live stream at the site of a place nicknamed 'Devil's Manor', where some years previously a satanic cult had sacrificed some people. The group include Spicy Steve (Michael Bonini), who was still a bit salty after the titular Chad pranked him during a similar night time live stream at a reputed haunted house some weeks previously. It also includes the duo known as 'Spennifer', made up of couple Jennifer (Taneisha Figueroa) and Spencer (Cameron Vitosh - Walker TV show), and of course, Chad himself (Spencer Harrison Levin -#chadgetstheaxe), someone who basically appeared to be a fictional version of the irritating real life social influencer Logan Paul. It isn't long into the exploration of the manor that things begin to take a turn for the bizarre, and soon Chad and the others are fighting for their lives, with the survivors struggling to find a balance between trying to survive the situation, and keeping the viewers of the ongoing live stream engaged and watching.
So, this was found footage, and elements of this harked back to the found footage films of the early 2000s, while other elements brought this up to more modern style. One part of these type of films that can be distracting is why the person filming never stops recording. With a live stream, and with four egotistical streamers seeing the biggest viewing figures of their lives, that doesn't become a question. At one point someone comments (the entire film has a stream of viewer comments in the bottom right hand side corner) why Chad is still filming, with his reply summing up his conflicted reasons perfectly. The old fashioned style of found footage won't appeal to all, there is a heck of a lot of shaky camera footage as the characters run around, and the second half of the film has almost too much footage that is near pitch black.
The more modern style is one that doesn't make entirely cohesive sense, but works at having all the events edited together. Much like films such as Host and Unfriended, a lot of the movie takes place from electronic devices, it starts with a computer screen, and then the meat of the piece is shown from the perspective of the four live streaming friends via their mobile phones. Moments from outside of the live stream are also shown, such as when characters send texts to each other, and when they Facetime each other. Cohesively it doesn't make sense how that would all be stitched together, but was a far better way than purely including the live stream footage.
I wouldn't say this started off too strongly. As per my intro thoughts, I found the characters all super annoying, Chad in particular was a terrible character. Surprisingly, and to the immense credit of Spencer, Chad became a fantastic character, someone who I found myself rooting for to survive, and who was really hilarious. This actor carries the majority of the movie, with at least two thirds mostly being from his perspective. He was just such a funny spoof of real social influencers, such as the phoney way he interacts with his viewers, how utterly self centered and arrogant he is, and how his online persona really backfires on him when he needs help. Moments such as when he phones the police and they hang-up on him when they realise he is someone known for distasteful pranks, or when he texts various friends of his who all assume he is trying to prank them. One hilarious moment has him Facetiming his cousin, a chilled out idiot at a club who insists Chad signs an online contract for him before he will humour him and call for the police. Chad comes to realise that his persona is really affecting his ability to survive the night! Of course, as likeable as he becomes, it was funny how still wrapped up in his social media status he is, terrified at the danger he's in, but also super happy to see the most views one of his videos has ever had, and discussing the possibility of what he is going through being made into a movie, and who would play him in that.
On the horror side of things, there were some decent moments, but the hulking axe wielding antagonist came off as a bit generic, even if it was cool that this apparent killer also was down to using technology, live streaming themself, and texting Chad at various points. Not a bad twist at the end either, something I have seen before, but was still a neat turn of events. Shout out goes to the various comedic reaction videos to the live stream that play out over the end credits.
#ChadGetsTheAxe was a found footage comedy horror that really felt of the current time period. A cool use of modern social influencer techniques merged with somewhat traditional found footage moments led to a film that became increasingly entertaining and amusing to watch. The second act was a little too (literally) dark for my liking, and the antagonist was a bit dull and uninspired, but Spencer put a lot of life into the terrible character of Chad, making for a fun and clever movie. #ChadGetsTheAxe is released on major on-demand and digital platforms on September 1st.
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