#ChadGetstheAxe (2022)
July 8, 2024 3:02 AM - Subscribe
Four social media influencers live stream their trip to Devil's Manor, former home to a satanic cult.
The comparison to 2022's Deadstream is obvious, and if you're going to watch any streaming-based horror movie, the all-time champ is still, in my opinion, Host.
But Chad holds its own! Deadstream leans harder into the "main person is a buffoon" idea, whereas Chad's influencers are concurrently even more obnoxious but feel more real than Shawn. Or maybe the boiling-frog nature of 'influencers' getting even louder, narcissistic and hyperactive that both Deadstream and Chad are reasonably accurate and this is just how much worse influencer culture has gotten in a few short years.
Anyway! On its own merits, I thought Chad was a lot of fun in the time-honoured 'brash teens get in over their heads, get slashered' tradition of these movies. It does exactly what it says on the tin: brash teens get in over their heads, get slashered. That's it! That's the whole thing!
So I had a good time watching brash teens get in over their heads and get murdlerized. I thought the streamers' personalities were decently distinct in terms of them having different breaking points in terms of empathy / sensitivity to oh-shit-this-is-bad versus oh-wow-we're-getting-views. The characters are dumbasses but consistently dumbasses in the sense that a lot of the choices are stupid, but earned stupid. Everything the plot pays off with does have setup earlier in the movie. Some great use of streaming / app-switching throughout to its full effect; great business with streamers watching themselves get stalked by switching over to the live feed of one of their stolen phones.
So if you're up for a reasonably well made found-footage turn-your-brain-off teens-get-killed movie, A+ would recommend. Not for people who can't tolerate 'influencers,' lots of jerky found-footage nonsense, or PewDiePie type Engagement Screamers.
The comparison to 2022's Deadstream is obvious, and if you're going to watch any streaming-based horror movie, the all-time champ is still, in my opinion, Host.
But Chad holds its own! Deadstream leans harder into the "main person is a buffoon" idea, whereas Chad's influencers are concurrently even more obnoxious but feel more real than Shawn. Or maybe the boiling-frog nature of 'influencers' getting even louder, narcissistic and hyperactive that both Deadstream and Chad are reasonably accurate and this is just how much worse influencer culture has gotten in a few short years.
Anyway! On its own merits, I thought Chad was a lot of fun in the time-honoured 'brash teens get in over their heads, get slashered' tradition of these movies. It does exactly what it says on the tin: brash teens get in over their heads, get slashered. That's it! That's the whole thing!
So I had a good time watching brash teens get in over their heads and get murdlerized. I thought the streamers' personalities were decently distinct in terms of them having different breaking points in terms of empathy / sensitivity to oh-shit-this-is-bad versus oh-wow-we're-getting-views. The characters are dumbasses but consistently dumbasses in the sense that a lot of the choices are stupid, but earned stupid. Everything the plot pays off with does have setup earlier in the movie. Some great use of streaming / app-switching throughout to its full effect; great business with streamers watching themselves get stalked by switching over to the live feed of one of their stolen phones.
So if you're up for a reasonably well made found-footage turn-your-brain-off teens-get-killed movie, A+ would recommend. Not for people who can't tolerate 'influencers,' lots of jerky found-footage nonsense, or PewDiePie type Engagement Screamers.
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I feel like this and Deadstream are using the same basic format to do very different things! Deadstream definitely depicts Shawn as an asshole but feels more like it's focused on who he is as a person, with the streaming environment as the thing that is putting him where he is and giving him a world to bounce off. #ChadGetsTheAxe seems way, way more contemptuous toward streamer culture in general- like, yeah, these are not great people but I think there's more of a focus on the culture around them and what kind of people it promotes/creates.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:40 PM on July 18 [1 favorite]