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[REVIEW] Panic Fest 2024: ‘Ghost Game’ Is Peak Content Creator Horror

Published

1 year ago

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This review is a message for Mr. Wattley.

If anything is clear from Ghost Game it’s two things. 

Firstly, writer Adam Cesare is having one hell of a 2024 and is rightfully getting the chance he deserves. His penned film Last Night at Terrace Lanes was an excellent debut screenplay, and his third entry into his Clown in the Cornfield series drops later this year. Secondly, The Stylist writer/director Jill Gevargizian isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. And that’s a damn good thing for horror. Working together, Gevargizian and Cesare mesh their two styles perfectly to create one hell of an engaging film. 

Ghost Game comes at a very coincidental point in my life in an odd turn of events, or what I can only describe as a cruel irony. I’ve recently become frustratingly entranced with an older YouTube channel called Ally Law. He was a young British guy who popularized overnight challenges for views. With a group of friends, Ally would enter businesses (typically gyms, trampoline parks, pools, or water parks) near the end of their business hours and then hide until employees left. From there, they would spend the nighttime hours having a grand old time, leaving at sunrise or running from the cops if they would show up. Or as the British call them, policeman officers. I’ve started outlining a horror script based on this…and then I saw Ghost Game! You beat me to the punch Adam, and I concede that you wrote a script ten times better than I would have. 

Ghost Game follows content creators Laura (Kia Dorsey) and Adrian (Sam Lukowski) who, at the behest of Mr. Wattley (Aidan Hughes), do extended overnight challenges in occupied houses. They create forced paranormal experiences and basically gaslight homeowners into thinking supernatural happenings are going on. Through a turn of events, Laura’s new beau Vin (Zaen Haidar) discovers her ominous occupation and strongarms his way between Laura and Adrian’s professional relationship—Vin takes Adrian’s spot in Laura’s latest haunt. Only, it seems the house they are entering may offer more than anyone bargained for…even the tenants who just moved in. 

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Mr. Wattley, and by proxy Laura and Adrian, have some sort of internet clout. To label them as influencers would be difficult, but it’s clear they have enough of a following to live well enough. Screenlife films have become one of the most overdone sub-subgenres and it’s gotten pretty lazy. Ghost Game gives us the best of both worlds. It’s clear from the start that Laura isn’t necessarily a good person. She’s not evil by any means, but what she does for a living is truly antagonistic. It should be stated Ghost Game is a different take on screenlife and doesn’t exist as a found footage film. Instead, it takes the content creators and puts them through horrors, but presents it to the audience as a regular film. This works in favor of the film and the audience. Rather than getting an hour and a half of Joseph Winters putting on a gratingly awful performance, we get content creators forced to reconcile their actions without making them perform like content creators. 

The performances are stellar for everyone involved. But it’s Kia Dorsey who truly takes the CAKE. Each performer found excellent ways to perform against each other in fascinating ways, but Kia Dorsey is going to be a goddamn horror icon. She understands the genre and completely embodies the role of Laura in a way horror hasn’t seen in a long time. As much as I’ve been crapping on screenlife found footage movies, if this were found footage from Laura’s perspective, I would have been a thousand percent okay with that. She’s that good. 

While this film was overall enjoyable, it did suffer in a couple of ways, though it didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment. The biggest pitfall Ghost Game faces is an incredibly rushed finale. It just…ends. This could be from Cesare being a relatively new screenwriter and trying to play it safe, or this could have been due to budgetary constraints. Ghost Game comes in at a lean hour and 25 minutes, and it definitely could have been 10 minutes longer without sacrificing the film’s pacing. The second issue I had with the film was its predictability. Again, it wasn’t enough to detract from the film, but it does feel incredibly on the nose. 

A lesser filmmaker would have taken Ghost Game into the realm of found footage- but its charm lies in that it doesn’t exist as found footage. If you want a scarily exciting paranormal romp with a fresh outlook on the subgenre, then Ghost Game is the film for you.

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Brendan is an award-winning author and screenwriter rotting away in New Jersey. His hobbies include rain, slugs, and the endless search for The Mothman.

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‘The Strangers: Chapter 2’ Review: I Am So Confused Right Now

Published

4 hours ago

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September 26, 2025

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The opening sequence of The Strangers: Chapter 2 is a promising start to what soon becomes a bafflingly bad movie. Since Chapter 1, I had been hopeful that the trilogy would find purpose for itself beyond being a remake. I honestly thought all the claims of Chapter 2’s irredeemable incompetence were just exaggerations meant to appease the algorithmic machine spirits. Let he who has not written an inflammatory article title cast the first stone.

But no. It actually is that bad.

We pick back up with our protagonist Maya (played by Madelaine Petsch) in the hospital, mourning the loss of her boyfriend to a trio of deranged masked killers. Struggling with wounds physically, mentally, and emotionally, she’s soon forced to get back on her feet and keep running after the titular strangers arrive at the hospital she’s recovering in.

Despite the honestly very strong camera work in this environment, the game is given away early. When you realize how long Maya’s been running from room to room, evading an axe-wielding maniac with cartoon logic, you soon understand the dire truth of the film as she escapes from the hospital morgue into the town: Oh good lord, we’re going to do this same thing for the entire movie aren’t we?

Yep, We’re Going to Do This Same Thing for the Entire Movie

If the final reel of The Strangers: Chapter 1 felt like a molasses drip, Chapter 2 in its entirety feels more like having people pour bottles of maple syrup out onto your face for 90 minutes. Something is technically happening, yes, but it’s the same thing over and over, slowly, and surprisingly very little happens in the grand scheme of things.

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Maya runs, then walks, then trudges aimlessly as she flees her attackers, occasionally getting a hit in on them, and then flickering in and out of consciousness. Every character that could give some good insight disappears or dies before they can speak. The ones who do speak are all equal levels of ominous, hinting at the very obvious twist we’re approaching in the third film, that there are way more than three killers and that the rest of the town is in on it.

Large swathes of the runtime are dedicated to watching Maya struggle to do simple things in the wake of her injuries. There’s no mean-spirited nature or message to punctuate the suffering parade she marches on in; she is effectively just fast travelling from set piece to set piece via CTE and blood loss induced teleportation. And while that sentence may be very funny in the abstract, it gets very old very fast.

What Is Actually Going On, I Am So Confused

It’s in these set pieces where the most confusing choices of Chapter 2 abound. We get flashbacks of the Pin-Up Girl killer as a young child, explaining the origin of the Strangers ding-dong-ditching antics. The scenes are just as corny as you’d expect, pockmarked by nonsensical explanations and connections back to the main plot; this is ignoring the fact that it tries to give sense to what are supposed to, at their core, be senseless crimes. It’s like, the whole ethos of the series. There is no point.

The nonsense of it all comes to a crescendo around the midpoint, when the strangers eventually lose track of Maya, and decide there’s only one course of action to get her: release a tactical boar into the woods to hunt her down like a heat-seeking hog missile. What results is a scene so ridiculous that it’s only topped by the shonen anime style flashback Pin-Up Girl has to honor the boar’s demise, fondly remembering how she got the pig in the first place before weaponizing it into a one-ton murder beast.

None of this is a joke in any way, shape, or form. I am still genuinely confused as to how this was all just allowed to happen.

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The Strangers: Chapter 2 Brings Technical Faux Pas on So Many Levels

Terrible story aside, it’s not like the film is saved on a technical level either. It’s largely lit like an IKEA commercial and shot in some locations, just like one too. The soundtrack is middling at best. The actual action is often shot shakily and edited in a manner so frantic that it would make early-2000s found footage blush with its visual instability.

The best I can say is that the practical effects to detail Maya’s wounds and subsequent sutures are great, but even then a finger curls on the monkeys’ paw as a trade; the film matches that with CGI blood at multiple points, blood that is so clumsily textured and layered on fabric that it made me nostalgic for the 2010s YouTube sketch videos they reminded me of.

Petsch’s performance is on par with her previous appearance in Chapter 1, still solid character work here, barring some cheesy moments that are like potholes in the road of the script. But when you’re fighting against a director who isn’t directing you in any meaningful way, and a script that doesn’t give you anything to work with, it really feels like she’s been left to spin her wheels. They don’t even let her act opposite Richard Brake for more than one scene, who spends most of the movie sitting in a diner drinking sweet tea with another officer. If anything is criminal here, it’s that. You don’t put Richard Brake in a corner!

Abandon All Hope for The Strangers: Chapter 3

For a film about masked killers, Chapter 2 is awfully mask-off about what it is— just the slow, low middle point in a nearly 5-hour movie that’s been cut into thirds. It’s a meandering stroll through some really alien choices in storytelling that ultimately feels hollow. It’s eerily reminiscent of the 2015 Martyrs remake, since that was also a complete trainwreck that didn’t understand what made its source material tick.

The Strangers: Chapter 2 is a trite hellbilly slasher at points, a played-out character study of its killers at others, and a limp thriller throughout where anyone can be the killer, and where ultimately, it doesn’t really matter who the killer is. While I wish I could say it’s insane failures in filmmaking will find itself a cult audience that loves bad horror, I don’t know if I fully believe that either. It lacks the heart necessary to be a cult classic. Whatever it is, it doesn’t bode well for whatever can of worms its finale has in store.

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[Review] Fantastic Fest 2025: ‘V/H/S/Halloween’ The Most Fun the Franchise Has Had in Years

Published

21 hours ago

on

September 25, 2025

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In my review of V/H/S/Beyond out of Fantastic Fest 2024, I described anthology horror as a box of chocolates (okay, Forrest Gump). It seems fitting to expand on that hackneyed metaphor for the latest installment in the long-running found footage franchise, V/H/S/Halloween, which celebrated its world premiere at this year’s festival. If most anthologies are a box of chocolates, V/H/S/Halloween is a trick-or-treat pail stuffed with mystery candy, some from familiar faces, others from creepy neighbors you barely know.
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There might be a razor blade hidden in its sugary depths, but damn if that’s going to stop me from plunging my hand back in for another bite.

Aspartame Is the Least of Your Worries with “Diet Phantasma”

V/H/S/Halloween is made up of five segments and the obligatory wraparound story. There are a few entries that harken back to the franchise’s darker beginnings, but the tone this time around is overwhelmingly kooky, befitting of the seasonal theme.
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This is established from the first appearance of the frame narrative, “Diet Phantasma.” From Scottish director Bryan M. Ferguson, best known for creating music videos for artists like Boy Harsher, “Diet Phantasma” is presented as internal documentation from a corporation attempting to perfect its new soda in time for a Halloween rollout. Unfortunately for the unsuspecting focus group, drinking the soda causes a few… side effects. Cue heads exploding and tentacles bursting from cans, all while the staff watching from behind the glass glance at the camera like they’re in The Office.
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The V/H/S franchise has always struggled with its frame narratives, leading it to largely ditch any attempt to tie its segments together cohesively in later entries. While it does feel like the films have lost part of their identity as a result, “Diet Phantasma” serves as a welcome palate cleanser between the self-contained segments. It’s always a delight to revisit, and Ferguson turns up the dial on the madness every time we cut back, punctuated by the always-amusing punchline of the “For Internal Use Only” memo flashing up on screen. If Shudder doesn’t sell a promotional can around the film’s release, they’re really missing a trick.

There’s No Need to Only Take One from This Candy Bucket

After whetting the audience’s appetite with its frame narrative, V/H/S/Halloween unwraps its first treat-size candy bar: “Coochie Coochie Coo” from Anna Zlokovic, director of Hulu’s Appendage. With shades of Hansel and Gretel if it took place in the universe of Barbarian, the segment introduces us to two teens on the cusp of leaving for college who decide to have one last Halloween hurrah. Dressed as babies, they wreak a little gentle havoc trick-or-treating in their neighborhood before finding themselves drawn to an impossibly alluring house that all the other kids seem to be skipping. Of course, “Coochie Coochie Coo” quickly reveals this to be a house of horrors with something more disturbing (and disgusting) lurking around every corner.
It’s a stellar start, anchored by leads who are unusually likable for a story like this and some great gross-out effects, while also introducing a theme that will crop up repeatedly in the film: if you fuck around with the unofficial rules of Halloween, you’d better be prepared to find out.

Unpacking “Ut Supra Sic Infra”​

Zlokovic’s segment is followed by “Ut Supra Sic Infra” from [REC] director Paco Plaza. A bunch of teens died horribly on Halloween night after breaking into the house of an infamous medium, and the police are grilling the only survivor to understand what happened—and why the bodies have no eyes. Plaza cuts back and forth between material recovered from the teens’ phones and present-day police cam footage, breaking the immediacy and immersion of the subgenre more than a little, but the conclusion he’s building to will make you forgive any found footage sins.
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Speaking of the conventions of the subgenre, V/H/S/Halloween’s middle segment, “Fun Size,” pokes fun at them right off the bat by having two of its leads dressed as characters in a found footage horror movie, complete with cameras strapped to their faces. They’re out trick-or-treating with another couple, but the specter of an unwanted engagement is dampening the mood. Things take a turn for the weird when they discover a bowl of unusual candy outside a house, but when one of the guys disobeys the order to only “take one,” they discover exactly how the sausage gets made.
From Casper Kelly, co-creator of the hilarious Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell, “Fun Size” does everything you could possibly want it to do and more, introducing bizarre mascots, a killer conveyor belt, and more, all brought to candy-colored life through some impressively silly practical effects.

But Does V/H/S/Halloween Deliver On the Horror?​

In fact, “Fun Size” is so much fun that the penultimate segment, Alex Ross Perry’s “Kidprint,” suffers slightly as a result. Sandwiched between two campy stories and equally unhinged wraparound interludes, “Kidprint” stands out starkly for its unflinching portrayal of true evil. The story concerns a company that makes videos of children in case they go missing. It’s almost Halloween and a lot of parents are understandably concerned about letting their kids go out after a spate of disappearances. Perry draws performances out of his young actors that feel uncomfortably real, giving the segment a gritty, snuff-like quality that we haven’t seen in the franchise for some time. It’s good, dark stuff, but the tonal whiplash will leave the taste of blood in your mouth.
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Closing out V/H/S/Halloween is “Home Haunt” from Micheline Pitt-Norman & R.H. Norman. Centering on a dad desperately trying to reignite the passion as his son grows up and loses interest in the elaborate haunted houses they build together every year, “Home Haunt” feels the most classically Halloween of the bunch, filled to the brim with nostalgic imagery. That nostalgia is what gives the segment its heart: how many of us wish we could go back to the simpler Halloweens of days gone by, when it was still magical for our kids, or when we were kids ourselves?
But this is far from a melancholy story, and the fun begins in earnest when a cursed LP brings the haunt to life, slaying everyone in sight, including SFX legend Rick Baker in a pitch-perfect comedic cameo. If this segment is anything to go by, the directors’ upcoming feature, body horror flick Cosmetic, should be on everyone’s radar.

V/H/S/Halloween Is All Treats, with a Few Tricks up Its Sleeve

I’m conscious of how many times I’ve used the word “fun” already in this review, but it’s really the operative word to describe V/H/S/Halloween, a film that will make you wonder why it took the franchise so long to get to this theme—and what other holidays it could and perhaps should tackle next.
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There’s truly something for everyone in entry, some sweet, some sour, but all immensely satisfying. It might rot your teeth, but V/H/S/Halloween is proof that this is one annual tradition that deserves to be revisited year after year. V/H/S/Halloween will be available to stream on Shudder starting October 3rd.
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