Livestream

PLEASE DO NOT waste your time. I finished this movie so you dont have to. 2 minutes in I wanted to change it but I love bad movies too. But this one here had no redeeming factors. I'm not even trying to be harsh but this is easily one of the worst movies this year if not Ive ever seen. So shout out to Victor Soares for making a whole waste of an hour & a half. You can basically call whats gonna happen the whole time. No surprises. Not realistic at all. Horrible acting all around. The live stream would have been banned or left behind. Cops would have showed up so much earlier. Magically the same cop because they couldnt pay for more then one. I truly believe I could make a better movie with a 0 dollar budget & real crack heads that I found. I hope to God this is the lowest review & rating I get because I don't know how it could get worse.

It feels as though the director went to directors school at Youtube University and is stuck in Forever 17. I predict they will not be the next Stephen King or any other name you will ever hear again. Apparently my review is too short so I will add that nothing in this movie, absolutely nothing cannot be found for free on youtube. And they dont even use directors. I would have to be paid to watch this again. As for the actors, nothing special about any of them and I would have to add that I would guess that they based their acting ability on what they see on youtube and they all probably have their own sad channel with sad subscribers.

Heading out to a special house, a team of social media influencers streams their exploration of a haunted cabin, which will be perfect for their followers to watch them navigate and find themselves haunted by a series of past indiscretions, distracting them from the real threat in the house.

This was an utterly disappointing and underwhelming modern genre effort. The main focus is on some of the most vapid and annoying figures possible in this kind of scenario, with the hyper-excited, self-centered figures looking to ensure internet popularity at the sake of likability. There's very little about who they are, what they're at the house for, and the desire to keep the cameras recording on everything that happens at the house. Very few of the interactions here make for a fun time getting to follow them. It doesn't help that there's a constant stream of other unlikable factors that emerge over time with the group getting far more frayed with each other for lame indiscretions including secretly filming each other while trying to engage in private moments, using the shoot for ulterior motives without their knowledge, or just accusing each other of asinine factors that just don't make them all that easy to follow along. On top of that, there's so little actual point to labeling this a genre effort. The scares are nonexistent with everyone running around yelling at each other the way they do, the live one-take format grows old incredibly easily due to the lack of action preventing it with doing anything extravagant or outrageous, and the whole thing gets wrapped up with the most predictable of outcomes possible that renders any attempt at surprise or suspense void with the whole thing given away so the film doesn't have much genre interest going on. Further damaging everything is the layout on-screen, as the constant influx of messages and jabs by the commentators makes this a consistent headache trying to manipulate the on-screen action and keeping an eye on that to ensure there's nothing hidden away in the form of easter eggs to what's going on. By the time it finally clears up at the end, it's too little, too late to save this one with all these issues.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.

This was a film that I got the chance to see thanks to Shirly from Studio Dome. The Horror Collective picked this film up and a press release was sent to me. Confirming that this is a 2025 horror film was enough to check it out. I do enjoy these live streams based horror films, like Spree, Deadstream or Dash Cam. Other than that, I did come into this one blind to avoid spoiling.

Synopsis: as a team of live streamers embark on a haunted house challenge, they quickly realize that the scares may be more real than they anticipated. With each twist and turn, they must navigate through the terror to fight to survive the night.

Now I'll be honest about something. I didn't realize that this group of friends were going to this remote location for a 'haunted house challenge'. We start this with a cop having pulled over the car. Driving is Joss Myers (Mao Sun). He's an aspiring actor who is dating Mia (Sarah Moliski). She is livestreaming for their protection as the cop is being rude. He is Officer Heyes (Nicholas Edmunds). Knowing that he's being filmed, he does back off.

Joss questions Mia after they're allowed to leave. He doesn't like that she livestreams as much as she does. He gets it though as this is how she makes money, as an influencer. With them are a couple aspiring stand-up comedians who use social media for their popularity, Pedro Carvalho (Victor Soares) and Thomas (James Michael Cowan). There is also an artist, Nina Bloom (Giulia Nassa), who Pedro has a crush on.

They arrive at the cabin they're staying at and it looks amazing. It is owned by Anthony (Anthony Moore) and his wife, Lindsey (Nika Khitrova). They also have a shy daughter, Liza (Savannah Schakett). Her mother embarrasses her by revealing to Mia that Liza is her biggest fan. Our group then goes inside to get settled.

It is from here that we truly get to know our characters. Thomas is a jerk and he pushes buttons. There are multiple times that Mia has to cover up things that he says and point out she doesn't share those beliefs. Joss and him get into it as well. I get the feeling that this group doesn't necessarily like each other. Live streaming what they're doing does force people to put their internet persona. It is grating for Joss, but it also pays the bills.

Joss goes off to blow off steam while the rest of the group checks out the fire pit. It is here that Lindsey asks if Liza can hang out with them to which Mia confirms is cool. Things get tense here where Thomas gets hurt, or did he? This becomes a night none of them will ever forget and they truly learn how far away from everything they are.

That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start then is with a warning or an encouragement, depending on what you're into. I know people that love this take on the found-footage subgenre. We have the comments that are coming in as people are watching. I'll be honest, I had a difficult time focusing on both what is happening on the screen and with reading those. There are a couple of times that this does cool things with using the whole frame so I started focusing on it. Another aspect here is that this is more about a character study and less about the story. Keep that in mind when deciding to check this out.

Now that I've set that up, let's start with our lead character of Mia. She worked with a travel agency to get set up with this house. The family that owns it are excited as this should be good for business. I'd bet that it is rented out at a discounted rate in exchange for her live streaming as much of their time there as they can. I'll be honest though, I hated Mia. She comes off as a fake, but that's definitely by design as this explores the concept of 'influencers'. I will also credit Moliski in her performance for getting a reaction out of me.

To then explore her friend group, I don't feel they truly like each other. It seems more of a necessity for their respective brands. Joss doesn't want to hurt his image in becoming an actor. He cracks a few times that he just wants time with his girlfriend while also knowing that she has obligations. Thomas is a sellout. He resisted TikTok and then decided to get it, now he's got a bigger following. Pedro is in a similar vein but not as popular. The most grounded character is Nina. She doesn't do social media or is limited there. She is probably the most talented as well. Credit to Cowan, Nassa and Soares, who I realized is also the writer/director.

The last group of characters will be the family that owns the cabin. Anthony feels a bit over the top, but I think that is by design. I think we're supposed to be leery of how nice he is. Lindsey is more grounded and feels real in the fact that she accidentally embarrassed Liza without meaning to. We learn that Liza is also bullied at school. Mia does what she can to make her feel included. There is this odd scene about a boy named David who only comes around to mess with her. We get an interesting scene there that sets the stage as something that is off with a broken window. I also thought that Moore, Khitrova and Schakett were solid in their performances.

I'll then just finish this out with filmmaking. I do love this live streaming found footage concept that we get. This does fall short to ones that I've named earlier. It gets too busy for me trying to see what is going on in the frame, see if I'm missing anything while also reading the comments. It doesn't help that not much happens. I didn't know there was a haunted house angle until reading the synopsis, so I think that is a misstep not building that more. It focuses on this group and I don't like the characters. I picked up on what route they were going and that worked. Something to credit here is that we have limited effects. They were practical so good on them. It does feel like a live stream so that's another positive.

In conclusion, this one tries to do something that is becoming more popular in the horror genre with live streams. I enjoy the concept, but I do think that this film falls short due to lacking the story. The acting performances were good across the board. They all bring distinct personalities to their characters. I just don't personally like these characters. It captures the live stream well. I just needed more to get me invested and to work better unfortunately. I'd still recommend it if you like this subset for this filming style.

My Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Of course I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. And despite it being a 'found footage' movie about social media 'influencers', then I will say that the acting performances were actually fair.

Writer Victor Soares certainly had a fair enough idea for the concept of the storyline and script, just a shame that it was made as a 'found footage' movie and focusing on social media freeloaders. So yeah, in my opinion, if Victor Soares had opted for a properly filmed movie and changed the characters away from narcissistic social media 'influencers' to regular people, then the movie would have been a whole other level of enjoyment. But as it was, then the movie stood a snowball's chance in Hell of winning me over.

"Livestream" was not a great movie to sit through, because I absolutely loathe 'found footage' movies and social media 'influencers'. And this movie's theme was a combination of those two things, so I was not in for an evening of stellar entertainment here. This is definitely not a movie that will grace my screen a second time.

If you enjoy horror movies, then I would not recommend you to waste 91 minutes on watching "Livestream". Some of us literally suffered through this ordeal, so you don't have to; you're quite welcome.

I am sorry, but hand-held camera footage and narcissistic social media freeloaders just doesn't cut it for me. And the constant flood of messages from the viewers was a major nuisance, as it often stole focus from the happenings on the screen.

My rating of writer and director Victor Soares's 2025 movie "Livestream" lands on a very generous two out of ten stars.