I've been watching quite a few found footage horrors for review lately and even when they don't hit I still don't find them that difficult to watch. Livestream, written and directed by Victor Soares (who also co-stars) tries something different with the subgenre, by creating the impression of having the entire film take the form of one single unbroken livestream on one of the lead character's phones.
Five internet personalities have teamed up together to go and spend the night at an allegedly haunted house out in the middle of a wood. The friends, who include among them social media influencer Mia (Sarah Moliski), her actor boyfriend Joss (Mao Sun), internet prankster Thomas (James Michael Cowan), comedian Pedro (Soares) and musician Cindy (Tiffany Dennis) arrive at the house and meet the family they will be renting the place from, with Mia filming the whole thing for her followers. Later that evening one of the friends are found dead and suspicions begin to be flung around, more bodies begin to pile up over ninety minutes of horror, all the while with the single livestream still going.
This instantly reminded me of the ace comedy horror found footage #ChadGetsTheAxe, but by playing it straight, and by only having the one camera perspective this was not as good as that one at all. I liked about that other one how amusing the terrible protagonists were, playing up for the camera despite all the terror going on, while the multiple cameras meant that something was always happening. It was a brave idea to not only show the entire film in real time, but to have it all from a single perspective. That idea was better on paper than in execution as it leads to plenty of moments were not much is going on at all. The characters here are melodramatic, shouting and screaming at each other in the most over the top ways. Characters were dull, possibly with the exception of Pedro, though he is only entertaining to watch when nothing bad is going on.
Being real time also meant that this takes a hell of a long time to get going. Apart from one early moment, it is a good forty minutes into the film before the danger finally appears. So we are stuck watching mindless drivel, such as Cindy playing music, and the conflicts between the group. When the horror does begin things don't really improve, at multiple times the camera is dropped (conveniently) framing scenes perfectly. This led to some decent moments, such as dead characters appearing not blinking or breathing on screen for literal minutes at a time, but it also led to moments of tedium where you are waiting for anything to happen.
During the whole movie there is a chat window taking up a sixth of the screen, the chat is inane and in that respect felt realistic, but it was also really distracting and I found myself glued to reading the constant text rather than paying attention to the film itself. I liked how this chat window mentioned things that I as a viewer was thinking, such as people (thinking what is happening is fake) typing that the acting is bad, that a particular shot has been well framed, and that various 'scenes' are too long. This chat window should have became a part of the film, but where in #ChadGetsTheAxe the characters directly interact with comments, here, the cast seem oblivious to the chat window, especially irritating when the viewers have seen key information and are trying to tell the protagonists, but none of them are bothering to read the text despite looking directly at the camera where I assume it would have been flowing.
Livestream should get kudos for so religiously sticking to the livestream format, I wasn't looking for scene breaks and assume there would have been some, but they were not obvious, making it feel authentically real time. The horror that takes place was ok, but nothing that crazy and unexpected really happens, with the found footage horror being more grounded than typical supernatural stuff you encounter in these types of movies. Not bad, but not great either, Livestream came to Digital and On-Demand on March 25th via The Horror Collective.
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