As Vloggers and social media influencers gather for an event, they soon discover that the hotel has its own influence…
When looking at the films that were showing at FrightFest, Deadcon, I admit, sounded interesting. But I’ve been wrong before.
Such was the case here. Simply put, this was not a good film.
It’s written by Scotty Landes (who also wrote the far better film, Ma) and as a script it starts promisingly, with a scene in the 1980’s as a programmer trying to launch a new software program, starts chatting to someone through it, despite the project being canned at the last minute. When it then cuts to the present day, you do wonder how it will fit in.
How it relates to the events in the present day timeframe of the film, is, perhaps, a slight surprise. But here’s the thing. I didn’t care. Why didn’t I care? Because the characters in this film are so annoying, I really didn’t care if any of them survived.
You can make your characters unlikeable but still keep the audience with them, to a degree, so long as they are interesting. You need the audience to care in a film, especially a horror film I feel, that one or more are worth rooting for to survive. Here, I couldn’t wait for the ghost, spirit, whatever it was to kill them. It doesn’t help that the film has no real lead. Ashley starts off, as if the lead, but she disappears for the last act of the film, making Megan the lead. It’s a major flaw, becuase her side plot, cheating on her boyfriend with someone is just so dull. Also side note: if new boyfriend guy suggests filming you having sex, I’d make sure he’s not taking your maybe as an excuse to do it.
Director Caryn Waechter does her best. The last act, which borrows from the likes of Paranormal Activity (for no reason, really it has to be said), has moments as does a clever scene with a sheet. But the subplots, the affair, Ashley wanting to take a break from social media take up too much of the story, that when the supernatural aspects of the story happen, they are more of a relief than anything else.
The performances are not good. Mimi Gianopulos and Claudia Sulewski are the only two I felt deserve praise. The rest of the cast gave the impression they’d never acted before.
I got the feeling the film was wanting to say something about social media and the online influencers and combine it with a horror type story. But it can never make either story really interesting enough to make you care and worse, keep you interested.
There is a potentially interesting idea at the heart of Deadcon. It’s a shame to say that the film itself fails to deliver on it.
Deadcon, sad to say, was the worst film I saw at FrightFest this year.
Rating: * out of 5
