Popcorn Frights 2024 Review: LIVESCREAMERS Brings Gaming to Screenlife

I'll be honest, I love a gimmick.

As such, I've been a vocal supporter of the "screenlife" subgenre/medium, which sees all of a movie play out on either a single computer screen or various tech screens. Livescreamers follows up on writer/director Michelle Iannantuono's very similarly titled screenlife film Livescream (2018) by centering a screenlife movie on video games and the people who livestream themselves playing video games.

Livescreamers isn't a sequel to Livescream, though the earlier film gets a brief shoutout that confirms a shared universe, but the conceit is similar enough: gaming livestreamers set out to play through a horror game for a stream, then the game begins to impact reality with fatal consequences. The key difference between the films, and what lifts Livescreamers above its predecessor, is that Livescreamers follows a group rather than an individual.

The movie sees the members of "Janus Gaming," and a (not so) lucky fan who won a contest to play along, embark on the mysterious indie game "House of Souls" with a mission to lift a curse from a spooky manor. It's fairly standard stuff narratively, but Iannantuono manages to wrench an almost unbelievable amount of tension out of watching the players struggle through various mini-games where failure would mean death.

While there may be a few too many similar sequences of deadly minigames, Livescreamers doesn't play out like a predictable slasher. Sure, some of the minigames claim the lives of characters; just as often, though, the group pulls together and everyone survives. This 50/50 possibility of success creates a sense of unpredictability that makes the film stand out among its horror brethren.

The players' decisions to work together and/or against one another sometimes fall into the standard utilitarian options anyone who's seen a zombie movie is familiar with, but many of them present more complex, or at least unique, moral quandaries. As the film goes on, secrets are revealed about each of the team members that cause friction, doubt, and outright hostility.

These secrets aren't the standard interpersonal drama, though. Some are issues of how micro-celebrities interact with fans, whether it's taking advantage of parasocial relationships or setting firm boundaries, and the consequences of those interactions. Others are financial, or rather about how much wrong can be accepted to turn a profit.

Those revelations and their following conflicts make Livescreamers a surprisingly insightful exploration of internet micro-celebrity and niche fandoms. Some of the writing leaves something to be desired, particularly from Black non-binary character Dice (Maddox Julien Slide) whose snarky comments about "the worst PR for heterosexuality" are trying a bit too hard. But on the whole Livescreamers delivers on ideas as much as thrills.

Sadly, none of those thrills take great advantage of the unique format. But for what may be just the second screenlife film about livestreaming gamers, Iannantuono and her team keep things interesting enough visually. Frequent shifts between players' perspectives in the game create a real sense of shared space for a fictional virtual world. The design of the game world (made with Unreal Engine) offers an equally alluring and dread-inducing atmosphere that alternates smoothly between aesthetics reminiscent of everything from The Haunting to Saw.

Livescreamers shows that there's, well, life in this niche of screenlife. Here's hoping that this exciting and intelligent entry into the subgenre ushers in more films like it. It certainly makes me look forward to whatever Iannantuono does next.

The film enjoys its Florida premiere at the Popcorn Frights Film Festival.