Truly Dreadful Film

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

I had the opportunity to screen Michelle Iannantuono's feature film debut LIVESCREAM at the Crimson Screen Film Festival and was blown away. It's an interesting concept for a film, taking the "found footage" concept into a new dimension of "real time events" unfolding as a livestream of videogame play. Gunnar Willis shines as the gamer who is forced to play a haunted game that kills off players and viewers. For this role, he learned 75 pages of dialogue and delivered the entirety as a monologue which was done in 3 takes. The most unique aspect of the experience is that as a viewer you are constantly scanning back and forth between the gameplay window, the videochat window, and the text window. It's pretty groundbreaking that there are VERY emotional moments in the film that are the result of simple text being typed into a chat window. Audience members at the screening were tearing up over one particular scene where a photograph puts a face to one of the faceless texters. It's WEIRD how much power a simple photograph of a person holds in the context of the film. I'm not a gamer and I was moved by LIVESCREAM. I suspect hardcore gamers that "get" all the references that were lost on me will enjoy this movie on an entirely different level.