I went into Stream without knowing anything about it. Having seen it, I feel like it's a mixed bag, with its strengths being awesome and its weaknesses dragging it down.
Stream falls into a horror subgenre with which I don't have much experience. But it seems like this movie was made for one purpose: carnage candy. It will surely delight fans of exploitation films. My jaw dropped several times at these shocking scenes.
Everything else to do with the horror elements are done well. The masks look great and there are some good jump scares and suspenseful moments. And the music is beastly.
As for the negatives, the best kills happen in the first half. My jaw rarely dropped in the second half. And anything not to do with the horror elements is poor. I try to give a little leeway for such a low budget independent film, especially when it comes to the acting talent available to them. But every conversation is overly long and awkward.
It's like they should cut here, but they continue for an additional 10 or 15 seconds. And this happens 70-80 times, multiple times within the same scene. I was bored and distracted, waiting for something fun to happen.
If that was cleaned up, and a few unnecessary scenes were deleted, Stream could have been a breezy 90-100 minutes. Instead, it's 130 minutes without warranting that runtime.
I had a solid time with this movie, and any fans of this subgenre should check it out. Support independent films.
(1 viewing, opening Wednesday 8/21/2024)