4 star funny but genuinely scary found footage horror.
Deadstream is a 2022 found footage horror/comedy written and directed by Vanessa (V/H/S/99) and Joseph Winter who also stars. It is a Shudder Original, avaialble on the streaming service from Thursday 6th October 2022.
“I’m Shawn Ruddy, the world’s biggest wuss and because I love attention and hate myself, I’m facing all my fears one dumbass challenge at a time.”
Shawn Ruddy (Winter) is an internet content provider and personality who rose to popularity with his stunt show entitled The Wrath of Shawn, in which he enacts dangerous situations in order to ‘face his fears’. One day however, he took things too far, someone was injured and he was basically cancelled.
Six months have passed since then and in a bid to regain his followers (and his sponsorship deals), he decides to film himself facing one final fear, of ghosts. He takes his recording equipment and heads off alone to Death Manor (the most famous haunted house he could afford to film in).
After setting up, he heads inside and begins the broadcast, live streaming to thousands of people. The house is famous for the suicide of local woman Mildred and the deaths of many more people since.
He intends to attempt to annoy any spirits which may be in the house, and things get even more hairy with the arrival of ‘superfan’ Chrissy (Melanie Stone – Little Women, Cupid for Christmas), as they search the house together for signs of supernatural activity.
“I have come up with one rule that you and the sponsors can hold me to. If I see or hear anything unusual, I have to check it out.”
Deadstream is a very enjoyable film to watch. I’m not generally a big fan of found footage horror, I don’t like the continuous head movements, but this cleverly gets around that, because we see it all as a livestream and also because a lot of the cameras are fixed around the house.
The character of Shawn is cringe makingly annoying, but this is of course deliberate and Winter plays the part brilliantly. There’s lots of girly screaming, done very convincingly. The practical special effects are plentiful and excellently executed, making for a film which is genuinely scary in places and with plenty of blood and gore thrown in.
It is also extremely funny and well written and actually made me laugh out loud a few times, rare for a horror comedy. An entertaining twist at the end makes this great fun and well worth a watch.
“Legend has it that everyone who died after her is still in this house. Why? Because Mildred is collecting souls to create the family she could never have in life.”
Deadstream is available to stream now on Shudder.
| Director | Joseph Winter, Vanessa Winter |
| Genre | Horror |
| Starring | Joseph Winter, Melanie Stone, Jason K. Wixom, |