Panic Fest Film Festival Coverage
Livescreamers review
A screenlife movie for anyone who has ever watched Twitch and wanted to see the hosts punished.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Livescreamers
Directed by Michelle Iannantuono
Written by Michelle Iannantuono
Starring Neoma Sanchez, Christophe Trindade, Michael Smallwood, Ryan LaPlante, Coby C. Oram and Sarah Callahan Black
Livescreamers Review
Livescreamers is a sequel to 2018’s Livescream. You don’t have to watch the first movie to enjoy this one. The events in that movie are referenced…but as a way for the characters to know that this has happened before. You won’t be missing anything jumping right into this one. Knowing about the original, however, does help explain this movie’s title. On its own the title makes no sense. We aren’t watching a livestream this time around. Instead, we watch a group of gamers recording a playthrough of a new game to be edited and released later.
If you’ve never watched streamers play video games before…perhaps you’ll recall the third season episode of Community titled Digital Estate Planning. If you haven’t seen that either…Livescreamers is a screenlife movie wherein we watch a group of gamers play a video game together. Each has their own camera so we can see them play while watching the game footage. Who we are watching switches depending on who is talking (or dying). It’s a picture-in-picture view. That should give you a good idea of how the movie looks.
The group of players make up Janus gaming. Eight gamers who create content for their shared channel. Today is a special day for a couple of reasons. First, they are being joined by the fan who donated the most on a recent charity stream. Second, the group is going to play a brand-new independent horror game called House of Souls. Actually…there’s a third reason too. If they die in the game…they die in real life. And the game is trying to kill them.
The group is led by channel creator Mitch (Ryan LaPlante). Nemo (Michael Smallwood), Zelda (Anna Lin), Dice (Maddox Julien Slide), Jon (Christopher Trindade), Davey (Evan Michael Pearce), and married couple Taylor (Coby C. Oram) and Gwen (Sarah Callahan Black) round out the group. Superfan Lucy (Neoma Sanchez) joins them on their deadly digital journey.
Despite wielding a large cast of characters, Livescreamers doesn’t waste much time getting down to business. Only eight of the nine can play…something the game rectifies by introducing an NPC (non-playable character) version of Davey. It looks just like him. It even has his voice. Rationalizing that it was created using his hundreds of hours of recordings…the group quickly moves past the first extremely troubling thing presented by the game. Gameplay involves investigating a haunted mansion. The group makes their way to a room where their avatars are tied to chairs and forced to play a trivia game. When Zelda loses the game, her character is murdered. As is the real Zelda. That’s a bit harder for the group to move past.
The group finds themselves locked in their recording studio…forced by the game to play until completion. The game even has access to their text messages and other content…using it to drive wedges between the players. Secrets are revealed and old wounds are opened. They need to stick together…something the game immediately makes difficult by presenting two doors that will only allow six of the seven survivors through. They must vote.
The good news is that the result of the vote leads them to a better understanding of their final goal and only hope for survival. The bad news is that it leads to another death. The endgame here involves a Siren. It must be defeated to win the game. Unfortunately, it becomes clear at every turn that the only way to progress towards that goal is to have someone die at each obstacle. Livescreamers provides a fun game to watch…and a deadly game to play. The group struggles to work together…losing member at every turn. Though the format repeats itself the challenges provide some nice variety. A timed bomb puzzle with explosive consequences. An NPC that takes issue with some dialog choices and decides to wield a chainsaw. Livescreamers never explains how these real-life deaths are possible. Chalk it up to magic, I guess. This is some interactive experience.
What matters is that Livestreamers is fun to watch. No one is safe…dark secrets will be revealed…and there may be no way out. The characters quickly change from their smiling, fake online personas to the people they really are. There is commentary on representation, inappropriate fan interaction, and toxic fandom. And a video game that kills you when you play it. Which is all you really need.
Scare Value
Livescreamers is a playthrough you’ll want to watch until the end. It mixes up the danger and offers death around every corner. Some of the gamer speak can sound a bit forced…but it’s almost impossible to make game streamers sound natural in a scripted format. Content creation is already difficult enough without a Siren hunting you.
Livescreamers is a playthrough you’ll want to watch until the end. It mixes up the danger and offers death around every corner. Some of the gamer speak can sound a bit forced…but it’s almost impossible to make game streamers sound natural in a scripted format. Content creation is already difficult enough without a Siren hunting you.
3.5/5
