Meelah Adams, star of the original 2015 short, returns in this feature-length film as supporting character, Julia. After posting the web series ‘Selfie From Hell’ online, Julia appears troubled when visiting her cousin Hannah (Alyson Walker). Something sinister is stalking her. But when she falls into a coma, Hannah turns to the dark net for answers.
If you’re an impressionable soft shite like me, you will probably find this movie’s subject matter a little more unsettling if you’ve already had a passing curiosity of the mysteries of the dark net – also known as the deep web. Perhaps you’ve freaked yourself out by watching alleged true stories about hackers who have found their way onto the dark net only to be invited to watch men in elephant masks being murdered by table saws. Luckily this movie doesn’t take things there, remaining predominantly supernatural.
Much like Lights Out (2016), Selfie From Hell began life as a popular internet short. And just like Lights Out (2013), it scared the heck out of its viewers. And while it attempts to repeat the glory of that last powerful jump scare, it succeeds in bringing us at least 6 or 7 fairly decent, all-new scares, including 2 in particular which easily take its place. And those 2 are twice as scary as any scene featuring a needlessly over CGI-ed Pennywise flying at the screen. They had me looking over my shoulder. Like I said, soft shite.
One of these frightening scenes involves Hannah’s encounter with her dark net contact, the villain known as FearEater, towards the closing of the film’s second act. It’s very The Pact (2012) meets Black Christmas (1974). Unfortunately this heart-pounding altercation is the last time that either FearEater or the movie is scary as it descends into a no-thrills, robotic rush job with textbook psycho-babble, a disappointingly bad CGI creature and a baffling conclusion.
Meelah as Julia, stands out from the rest of the cast as she helps provide a good many of the film’s spooky moments. The rest of the cast, while pretty to look at, make you feel like you’re driving a reliable, sensible car. They do their job, but there’s nothing outstanding about their performance. They just help us get from A to B and so on without any fuss.
LAST WORDS:
This movie could’ve easily featured a group of vacuous and annoying high school teens dying off one by one as they are stalked by a creeping zombie that only appears on their selfies. Thank fuck it’s not! With strong scares, Selfie From Hell has evolved into a skin-crawler that fits in most of the worst elements that make the internet a dangerous place to be. The third act is nowhere near as strong as the rest of the movie but then again they rarely ever are!