Deadware

It was better than I expected, for a low budget found footage almost style film. The conversation seems natural like two friends chatting on a web cam, and the concept was pretty cool. It definitely looks like the 90s Internet too, and playing a game on the Internet was pretty 90s. So I think the concept works.

It got in some nice creepy scares, got out some cool secrets about the characters. The chat between the characters explains the story, so I felt that worked.

I thought it was a slow start though, and more chatter explaining the story instead might have worked a bit better. But overall not a bad watch.

There's nothing wrong with the acting, between the two actors who take up 98% of the films screen time. Its just mostly very slow and consists of a few mins playing a game then a few mins talking.

It's a cheap cam 2 cam film set in 1999, because they couldn't do much with visual effects to make it more modern, so opted for a few photoshop stills and made it out to be the two of them discovering an online game that they soon find out is haunted.

The scariest part of this film is its supposed to be online in 1999 and the game loads instantaneously over their 56k modems and there's absolutely no buffering on their cams, no drop outs, no frozen cams for a few seconds, no pixelated images and no dial-up sounds... actually the dial-up sound could have aided in bringing up PTSD for those of us who suffered through those days. Lol. But I found it too hard to get past all that to suspend enough belief and just go with it.

Had this been made in 1999, it might be a decent flick to put some fear into someone, but instead it's just another cheap movie with cheap jump scares that should have been cut down to a 30 Min episode or even just an even quicker online short film.

I'd only recommend it to you if you're already interested, otherwise you'll never kick yourself for never seeing it. It's not a pop corn flick, it has zero humor, no memorable scenes or quotes, there's nothing noteworthy about anything here. It's playable as a one off viewing that you can watch all the way through and not be completely bored to death, but it's basically just the average low budget flick that tries to have a clever little twist in the end that's not all that clever at all... tho if you happened to have seen a 2022 film called "Choose or Die" and actually liked it, you might get the same kick out of this one that is slightly simmilar in plot.

I'm usually good with letting every Movie no matter how good or bad play out to the end . . . But this one just hasn't managed to capture my attention.

It's only been playing for 15 minutes, but it's mostly talking . . . And I'm just not that much of a conversationalist. Give me a little Action any day . . .

Or at least something to laugh at . . . Or pretend to be frightened by (Jump Scares just don't make me jump . . . And I'm not much of a reacter either).

I gave this Movie a Middle-of-the-Road Rating of 5 only because I'm not going to finish watching it.

So by all means don't base your decision to watch/not watch solely on my Review . . .

I liked the concept especially the idea of it being from a 90s AIM IBM computer period piece. However as intriguing as the concept was it still couldn't make up for the terrible acting and lack of authenticity in the dialogue. "I don't wanna play, I'm logging off" then 1 phone call later of asking without persistent persuasion player 2 is back in camera convinced to play again and all it took was a "I need closure please"? No way. Then when player 2 comes back all of a sudden he wants to be there. No more mention of work. Also I would like to mention that actors nowadays who don't look old enough to have experienced the AIM era themselves couldn't possibly capture the authenticity of the time. In one scene he says something like "it's not voice activated... that would be impossible" almost like he wanted to say "it's 1995 we don't have voice activation yet but we will have it in 2025". It wasn't necessary to put so much emphasis on "it can't be voice activated". Felt like he was trying to convince us that it was 1995. The scenery, software, and hardware already told us what time period it was. No need for convincing. Could've been a 5 or 6 but acting dropped it to a 3 or 4. I gave it 4 because the game did look like something we played at that time.

Plot

In 1999, two friends use a webcam for the first time and stumble across a mysterious browser game that may be haunted.

Cast

Not familiar with anybody involved.

Verdict

There's no shortage of "Cyber" horror films these days in fact we went through quite the spate of them. A large percentage operated the gimmick of playing out entirely through a characters screen with a series of windows open and of course all the involved characters on webcam. The results, mixed however I always liked the concept and it very often managed to be suitably creepy despite the movies quality.

Deadware is on a considerably lower budget than most of the others and to a point it shows, but with something that's not supposed to look polished it's entirely forgivable and looks exactly as it's supposed to.

Telling a story essentially of a haunted browser game in the 90's it oozes nostalgia for those of the right age who dipped their feet into webcams back in the day. Even the point and click browser game brought back memories.

It delivers the creeps, the perfectly constructed pacing and I found myself gripped. The flaw? The finale though passable was more than a little uninspired and really lets the film down.

Regardless within this sub-genre this is up there among the best in my opinion.

Rants

I miss games like this, slow paced, mysterious, unpredictable and yet having a level of basic construction that keeps you on your toes. Modern horror games are more like action titles or alternatively they're predictable flashlight wielding in the dark jump scare filled predictability. Games in many ways have gotten too advanced, back peddle! And while we're on the subject, enough putting multi-player into everything. I almost miss the days before online multiplayer where you played games on the couch together. Yep, I'm officially old.

Breakdown

Perfect pacing Great execution Very nostalgic Weak finale.