'Stream' Review - 'Saw' Meets 'Death Race' In This Slasher Horror Game Show (2024)

A movie like Michael Leavy’s Stream will always intrigue me as a horror fan. There’s something about the repulsive nature of forbidden internet reaches and social media clout-chasing that maximizes genre commentaries. Scripting reflects the addicting game show vibes in examples from Death Race to Hostel: Part III to Slashers with a dash of Saw. Leavy’s brand of terror exploits marketable violence for the masses, but the problem is, we’ve now seen this streaming massacre model redone a thousand times. You have to compare and contrast what Stream brings to the table, which struggles to be enough.

What Is 'Stream' About?

Leavy’s sad*stic stalker-killer competition takes place in a hotel hideaway known as The Pines. Roy Keenan (Charles Edwin Powell) and his family check in, trying to relive better years when their children weren’t busy amassing streaming followers or getting arrested for alcohol theft. They’re greeted by The Pines’ night manager Mr. Lockwood (Jeffrey Combs), right before catching some shut-eye before tomorrow’s busy amusem*nt park plans. Roy’s teenage daughter Taylor (Sydney Malakeh) isn’t tired, so she sneaks out with some cute French boys she noticed earlier — and Roy eventually has to locate her with youngest son Kevin (Wesley Holloway). It’s while out wandering that Roy notices The Pines has locked all exits, and they’re not the only ones awake — psychotic killers in color-coded masks have claimed the hotel as their hunting grounds.

Stream is what I refer to as a “Body Count” title — something like Terrifier. Characters exist to be slaughtered, often without further development or purpose. We don’t get much backstory behind the roster of killers anonymously known as “Player 1” and so forth, nor does the screenplay’s gaming company dive deeper than users making prop bets to determine which victim dies first, who might survive, or other gross parlays that care not for human life. You’re here to watch Mark Haynes’ mega-muscly Player 4 collapse skulls with his hands, or to chuckle as David Howard Thornton’s Player 2 and Liana Pirraglia’s Player 3 use abdomen flesh to play Tic-tac-toe. Leavy aims for midnighter grotesqueries with a sense of grim humor (on a budget), done a bit better by indie standouts like The Funhouse Massacre.

What evades Leavy is the film’s pacing because there’s not enough foundational ingenuity to sustain two whole hours. Stream doesn’t announce its game’s afoot until seventy-ish minutes into Roy’s vacation nightmare, referring to the film’s duller first half as a “warmup.” We meet other patrons staying at The Pines — stupidly sex-crazed hotties, annoyingly inebriated partiers, moronic drunkards, the works — but Leavy’s not planting emotional seeds that blossom into predictable payoffs. Stream treats its lineup of targets as fodder for bloodletting, which renders all that fluff at the beginning somewhat unnecessary. Leavy never endears us to the Keenans or any other Pines inhabitants, which sucks the wind out of later slasher violence.

'Stream' Is a Horror Movie That Boasts Great Practical Effects

Luckily, Art the Clown creator Damien Leone brings his practical effects expertise to Stream. Once the gore starts gushing, Leone scores highlights involving power drills, arcade joysticks, and plenty of ocular mutilation. You can’t deny the Terrifier and Terrifier 2 levels of bodily abuse, never at either reference point’s pinnacle, but comparative in sleazy vibes. Sick freaks ambush nameless pawns in modded paintball masks with glowy eyes, which becomes a repetitive cycle, but Leone does his darndest to ensure there’s a variety of blunt-force brutality to behold. Leavy throws back to “Golden Age” horror practices that valued over-the-top deaths instead of richly engrossing stories, which if valued on prosthetic severed heads alone, gets the job done. What’s unfortunate is how these movies used to punch in, hack bodies apart, then get out — Stream lingers, and its confidence doesn’t meet execution.

The experience replicates indie horror flicks that boast an all-star cast of genre veterans for bragging rights. Jeffrey Combs is a mainstay as Mr. Lockwood, who anchors the film with an approvably Combs-specific madness—but outside that, expect truncated cameos. Danielle Harris plays Roy’s wife Elaine, doing the best with corny motherhood lines, while Dave Sheridan scores a few quick laughs as The Pines’ bartender and arcade mechanic. Felissa Rose, Dee Wallace, Bill Moseley, or any other marquee names are treated in a Death House manner, which is not a compliment.

Actually, don’t expect magnificent performances from the entire ensemble. You won’t discover any breakout stars in Stream — a diss on tonal languishing and stereotypical arcs. Characters disappear for stretches and reappear after some nobodies turn to butcher’s block cuts, while the narrative construct holding the film together — this underground slasher betting ring with sponsors and everything — is hardly expanded upon. There’s a specific third-act “twist” that had me howling with laughter due to the film’s prior inability to garner empathy for the Keenans as a family trying to reconnect. Leavy’s best intentions clash with his desire to keep executions coming, which is inexcusable at such lengths. Two hours is just too damn long for a “style over substance” feast of fatalities — execution can’t muster much else.

Stream learns the wrong lessons from Terrifier, which is a bummer because the concept has potential. As is, it lacks the foundation to deliver as a standalone — partly because of an ending that’s so clearly gunning for sequel hype. Unfortunately, not enough attention is paid to the spectacular now. Stream meanders, spending too much time saying so little. Quirks aren’t explained, we’re plopped into a scheme without much catchup, and the entire experience is bloated beyond reason. There’s a tighter edit of Stream somewhere, but it ain’t this version, much to my disappointment.

REVIEW

Stream

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Stream is a sickly sweet piece of horror junk food that might pack enough disgusting practical effects to please gore hounds, but the story itself is underwhelmingly stunted, to the point where style over substance isn't enough to hypnotize horror fans.

Pros

• Gimme those gross as heck kills.
• There's a spark of brilliance behind the story.
• Make horror fun and gross again.

Cons

• The film is entirely too long for its intentions.
• Kills matter, but little else does.
• It's single-minded to a fault, we need to care about who's dying, not just how many people die.

Stream is now playing in theaters in the U.S. Click below for showtimes near you.

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