Director: Paul Bukoskey
Year: 2026
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Falling on hard times, a group of washed-up content creators decides to pool their resources and their followers to go on a search for a missing friend said to have become embroiled in a mysterious internet legend, bringing them into a dangerous video shoot they might not walk away from.
Review:
Overall, this was a watchable if disjointed genre effort. Among the better features here is the genuinely likable and effective setup that manages to create the kind of chilling urban legend that allows everything here to spiral out of control the way it does. The first half gives this an in-depth look at not just who they are as individuals, but their history of failed content channels, which requires them to team up to explore a trip into the woods to investigate what happened to a fellow streamer who was investigating a strange urban legend. The introduction of this concept, from the bits about their friend who disappeared in the desert looking for it, the cutaways to explain what happened and what brought the whole urban legend together, and the whole purpose behind the strange figure in the woods that ties the story together and sends them off on their search, works well enough here and makes everything come together quite nicely here.
Once it gets to the group in the middle of the woods, there’s some immensely likable genre effort that has quite a lot to like. The complete confusion of the group getting lost and trying to keep going the same way, with their machismo ways keeping them in trouble and getting into hopelessly dangerous situations that comes to a head with the inclusion of several impressive, fun sequences of the group getting hopelessly lost out there. That turns this around quite nicely when they approach the sacred tree and the one member gets possessed under its influence, goes crazy, and starts knocking off the others in some gruesome, intriguing setpieces. From the encounter at the tree when everything gets revealed, to the series of scenes focused on getting to safety inside the lone shack they’ve found in the area, these are usually quite fun and manage to make the most of the found-footage aspect even more important, all giving this some likable factors.
There are some issues here that bring this one down. The biggest factor here is the highly unlikable and somewhat troublesome group of main influencers we’re following, which makes everything far more difficult to get into. The opening scenes that focus on the group getting together, reviewing the issues with their respective content, and why they need to go through the shoot for their channels are crucial to setting up the story, yet they also highlight how awful they are as people. The yelling, screaming, and degenerate behavior they go through for the sake of having something to save their ego is really tough to get behind, especially as this goes on and those become even more pronounced as time goes on. As well, there are also the incredibly frustrating inserts here from other streamers and reactors commenting on what’s going on, making it difficult to figure out what’s going on where, if it’s a live broadcast we’re cutting in on or if they’re watching it later, making it enough to hold this one back.
Overview: ***/5
A really solid, if slightly troublesome, found-footage effort, there’s a lot to like here, and it keeps going even though it has some big issues that keep this down quite heavily. Those with an appreciation for the kind of genre fare present here, or if you’re a hardcore fan of found-footage, will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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