DEADWARE (2021)

Studio:     No Sleep Films
Director:    Isaac Rodriguez
Writer:     Isaac Rodriguez
Producer:  Sarah Froelich
Stars:     Sarah Froelich, Ali Alkhafaji, Christine Brown

Review Score:

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Summary:

Via video chat, two friends become drawn into a haunted browser game that holds the secret of their mysteriously missing friend.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Rachel and Jay, longtime friends who now live in separate cities, use their webcams to catch up via video chat in 1999. While discussing their mutual estranged friend Amy, Jay mentions that he hasn’t seen or heard from Amy since he revealed his crush on her and she rejected his romantic advances.

Rachel teases Jay by proposing that they contact Amy. Rachel sends Amy a chat request and receives an automated away message that says Amy is playing a browser game called “House of Hunger.” Jay mentions that before she stopped talking to him, Amy became obsessed with the occult.

Using a shared screen on their computers, Rachel and Jay visit the website for House of Hunger, which turns out to be a point-and-click adventure game based on hungry ghost folklore from Eastern culture. As they enter a digital haunted house to play the game, the two friends see that Amy is the only name in a virtual guest book. Over the course of exploring the game’s scenes and solving its puzzles, Rachel and Jay occasionally see disturbing video clips of someone seemingly offering a bloody, beating heart as a ceremonial sacrifice. They also see flashes of a ghostly figure that resembles Amy.

As Rachel and Jay continue having bizarre experiences with the game, Amy seemingly sends a request to join their video chat. After the request triggers another clip of haunting video footage, Jay becomes too frightened to continue and logs out. Rachel tries to continue playing by herself, but the game refuses to let her play without a second person. Rachel calls Jay and he reluctantly agrees to come back to finish the game.

Rachel and Jay discuss Jay’s religious beliefs. Rachel reveals that a failed relationship led her to attempt suicide. Rachel saw nothing during the time she was clinically dead, leading her to conclude that an afterlife doesn’t exist.

Rachel and Jay explore a virtual art gallery featuring a painting of a person who resembles Rachel. Soon after, they explore virtual catacombs where a buried skull identifies Amy as a murder victim. Through a virtual Ouija board, Rachel and Jay seemingly communicate with Amy until they are interrupted by Jay’s roommate knocking on his door.

Jay’s roommate turns out to be his mother. Disappointed, Rachel asks Jay to not lie to her again since he previously claimed he had finally moved out on his own.

Rachel and Jay visit Amy’s online blog about House of Hunger, which reveals Amy came to believe the game was haunted. Rachel and Jay continue to see creepy footage and scenes that appear to show Amy as a frightening figure.

When the experience becomes too frightening, Rachel and Jay both agree to stop playing. However, they hear Amy cackling offscreen in a video chat window that shows her home. A haunting voice then replaces Amy’s.

Rachel suggests calling the police. Jay confesses that he doesn’t want to involve the authorities because he doxxed Amy as retaliation for rejecting him and he fears his actions will appear incriminating. After chastising Jay for his jealous behavior, Rachel threatens to call the police unless Jay goes to Amy’s place to check on her, which he does.

Through the video chat window, Rachel sees Jay arrive at Amy’s. Jay plays a video file titled “House of Hunger” on Amy’s computer, which shows the bloody, beating heart as well as a menacing skeleton creature. The clip suddenly glitches to show older webcam footage of Jay holding Amy captive while threatening her. Rachel realizes Jay killed Amy and covered it up. The footage glitches again to show a ghostly image of Jay, who suddenly disappears from Amy’s room.

Using the virtual Ouija board, Rachel apologizes to Amy for their broken friendship. Amy spells out that she wants Rachel to die. An image of the cemetery from the game shows Jay as a ghoul. Rachel screams and runs offscreen where a thump is heard. Rachel then appears as a motionless ghoul alongside Jay in the image of the cemetery.

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Review:

“Deadware” is about as homegrown as DIY horror gets. Available as a $1.99 rental on Amazon, or for free on Tubi at the time of this writing, it’s essentially self-distributed by a small label called “No Sleep Films.” There’s technically a third person in the film, but really there are only two actors, both of whom are making their feature debuts. One of those actors is also the producer. Writer/director Isaac Rodriguez also edited the film. Aside from that tiny cast and the one-man crew, only two other names appear in end credits and they’re both listed under “Special Thanks.” So yeah, “Deadware” is a bare bones micro-indie in every sense of the term.

Those credits only account for 45 seconds of what’s only a 68-minute runtime. Unfortunately, the first 12 of those minutes fall into a typical “found footage” trap of overdosing on bland establishing blather as we get to know Rachel and Jay through mundane chatter that doesn’t matter too much.

It’s 1999. Longtime friends Rachel and Jay now live in separate cities, but they’ve found a way to finally keep in touch using newfangled technology: webcams. Via video chat, Rachel and Jay catch up on their recently failed romances. For Jay, this means mentioning their mutual friend Amy, who didn’t react favorably when Jay revealed his crush on her. She hasn’t spoken to him, or to Rachel for that matter, since their awkward falling out.

“Deadware” hits a catch-22 hiccup during this setup stage. Unlike many “found footage” films that try to build a story by haphazardly winging it, “Deadware” actually sticks to a script. The hitch is, actors Sarah Froelich and Ali Alkhafaji sound like they’ve run through a rehearsal more than once. They can come off like they’re reading from pages in their mind’s eye, yet they still occasionally cut off each other at the wrong moments only to restart a beat later. They don’t have the smoothest initial exchanges, although I’ll take having a plan over improvisation whenever it comes to a film in this format. Besides that, the actors are photogenic and take their task seriously. Honestly, there’s not much more you can ask for, or expect, from two newbies probably doing a favor for a friend.

I assume the film was shot in order because Froelich and Alkhafaji get into a groove once they’re warmed up. Conversations flow more naturally after fear and frights come into play. When Rachel gets the idea to see what Amy has been up to since the last time the three of them spoke, she and Jay are directed to a website with a point-and-click adventure game based on hungry ghost folklore. Rachel and Jay then set out on a virtual jaunt through a digital haunted house, and quickly become wrapped up in a supernatural experience that holds the key to what really happened when Amy seemingly disappeared from their lives.

Another area where “Deadware” gets into trouble is that by basically being a screenlife-style film, it’s impossible for it to be as immersive as “found footage” usually is. First-person footage simulates the sensation of a camera serving as our eyes. When Heather hustles through the forest in “The Blair Witch Project,” we feel like we are the ones running, which in turn heightens vicarious terror. Here however, we’re just watching a couple of windows on a computer monitor. It’s hard for anything to be scary when we’re limited to being passive voyeurs while Rachel and Jay play a two-dimensional game on static screens.

“Deadware” does a decent job of depicting what a browser-based game looked like at the end of the 20th century, though. Chat windows have those blocky corners. Fonts appear pulled from an old AOL dial-up disc. Although they’d never give Myst a run for its money, the game’s imagery is also in line with how cheap, yet not entirely chintzy, web games played back then. And it’s not a bad idea for a movie with barely any budget to date itself as a period piece that can get away with throwback graphics.

The music speaks to the same era, echoing moody melodies I remember from titles like “Resident Evil 2” in terms of tone. Credits attribute this audio to “Consumer Electronics,” whatever that is, and “The Rita,” which is apparently a noise project whose tracks were presumably licensed rather than recorded specifically for the film. That makes it weird to compliment how well the music enhances atmosphere since it isn’t original, though I suppose credit can go to whoever recognized how well it would fit into “Deadware’s” retro little world.

“Deadware” looks a lot like “The Collingswood Story,” but it doesn’t have the slickness or the scares to be anywhere near as effective. Due to its limitations as a truly lo-fi work, I can’t recommend “Deadware” as entertainment, although I do appreciate it as an admirable example of what a handful of people can make with next to nothing. It’s a good effort all things considered, and what I’m considering is that “Deadware” dangles on a shoestring held together by bubble gum and a paper clip. The few people who made it understood the restricted conditions they were working within. Viewers have to understand that too.

Review Score: 55

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