Deadstream (2022) review: Shudder’s splatter-tastic horror story hellaciously re-energises found footage for a livestream generation

Earlier this year we all saw the found footage format get shaken and taken to hell in the polarising livestream gone crazy confrontational sublime Shudder horror experience from Rob Savage Dashcam. Now, we get a further re-invention of the found footage technique in Vanessa Winter and Joseph Winter’s likewise Shudder released black comedy meets supernatural horror rollercoaster Deadstream.

Starring an utterly convincing and brilliantly game Joseph Winter as Shawn, a hot trend YouTube “personality”, previously famed for facing his fears in increasingly crazy stunts, the film soon treads a very dark path. As Shawn, after being “cancelled” for a stunt gone ethically very wrong, seeks to redeem his brand by doing a livestream from an isolated haunted house, taking things as off the grid as he can for the latest stunt. Naturally, tempting such forces results in Shawn quite literally having to face his fears, be they of this world or the next.

The raging feral blood of The Evil Dead (and its revered sequel especially) courses through the veins of Joseph and Vanessa Winter’s Shudder UK scorcher! In fact, you could quite easily call Deadstream, this generation’s Evil Dead! And that is no hyperbole BS.

Deadstream is a blast of a film that integrates found footage storytelling into multimedia streaming technology and is an atmospheric, spooky and funny treat at the same time. Starting hot with many savage takedowns of the “notice me” influencer age we currently live unavoidably in, the film’s timely bite only sinks its rotten teeth deeper and deeper into the muscle of this stupidly oversimplified black and white toxic culture and the humanity-eroding extremes that it creates. 

The realistically public messages of support, condemnation and indifference from afar play into the already sharp script well, while Shawn’s man child whimpering and attention-seeking antics perfectly intertwine with more age old horrors and cautionary campfire storytelling. Deadstream is constantly a fantastically assembled paranormal splatter survival story, that properly traps us in this haunted house, that quite literally brings hell to earth. While also making you question whether hell really is already here, in many different shapes, forms and hashtags. 

Influential filmmakers like Sam Raimi should be proud that films like Deadstream keep coming along and giving the genre rabies with its contemporary shale-ups! Just as people like him did all those years ago.

Don’t miss it and keep an eye on those multiple cameras and messages. And remember, being a YouTube personality is not always a walk in the park, in fact sometimes its a soul-taking experience…what would you do for clicks?