#ChadGetsTheAxe - Movie Review

The Movie: #ChadGetsTheAxe

The Director: Travis Bible

The Cast: Spencer Harrison Levin, Michael Bonini, Taneisha Figueroa, Cameron Vitosh, Brandon Doyle, Shun Hagins

The Story: Four social media influencers live stream their trip to Devil's Manor, former home to a satanic cult.

The Review:

Oh the surface, it's very obvious what you're going to get from this movie. A few scares sprinkled into a quasi found footage movie, it's mostly live stream footage not like VHS or DVD type stuff, with a heavy focus on comedy that stems from live streaming and influencer culture stereotypes. Other than that, there's honestly not much going on here so set your expectations accordingly.

For me, this movie was a missed opportunity to really dive into the influencer culture where plenty of scary stuff can be found that could have been used to add tension and stress which would have been a nice balance and counterpoint to the comedy. At the beginning of the movie, there were a few hints of this as "Spicy Steve", played by Michael Bonini, showed a hesitancy and reluctance to fully engage with the culture he was already so heavily immersed in to.

This could have provided an even stronger conflict between him and Chad, played by Spencer Harrison Levin, who represents pretty much all the negative perceptions of influencer culture with his get viewers at all costs mentality. Maybe I was just hoping for more of a genuine horror movie rather than a silly comedy that uses horror as more of a backdrop than anything else. 

I hesitate to say this, but the movie is almost worth watching a second time thanks to the livestream chat that's constantly running on screen. There's a heck of a lot going on there with multiple viewer characters coming in and out of the chat to either root on the influencers or to cheer on their inevitable demise. If you just focus on this part of the movie, you will really get to see how live streaming can be a very toxic environment if not curated properly.

The run time for the film is only one hour and 23 minutes and I definitely wouldn't have wanted to see it stretched out any more than that. If you're looking for a the type of movie that you can turn your brain off while watching and just have a good laugh then this might be a solid option. Maybe. If I had other options in front of me, this movie would definitely get the axe.