DEADSTREAM Hosts Mild Ghostly Mischief

A digital content creator best known his for wacky—and morally questionable—hijinks decides to livestream himself spending the night in a haunted house. As the night gets underway he’ll realize messing with the spirit world for his fame was a poor decision. An oddball found-footage-esque film, Deadstream offers low-budget haunts with a decent side of humor.

It does a great job utilizing its storytelling gimmick to add in some exposition. The story is built organically with him streaming past media on the ghosts, which I thought was a smart method to give the viewers more details about the house. And speaking of that, there’s some impressive set design that creates a fairly creepy, worn-down environment.

While it has some moments of suspense, it does lean more heavily into its comedy. The satirical bits were much more charming than I expected, though some jokes fell a little flat for me. There are a couple of things one could nitpick with the overall film — I thought at times the makeup didn’t read well on camera — but that’s the beauty of independent film.

Despite a few minor flaws, it’s an entertaining flick that you can tell the filmmakers and cast had a fun time creating. Just don’t expect any major frights out of this one.

Deadstream will premiere exclusively on Shudder this year