Stream

by Mike McGranaghan

Fans of the Terrifier franchise will want to put Stream at the top of their must-see list. The same general creative team was involved, and indeed the film has a similar mixture of uber-realistic gore and macabre humor. While perhaps not quite as extreme, it will nevertheless scratch the itch of viewers who appreciate the risk-taking of independently produced horror fare. A cast packed with horror legends sweetens the deal.

The Keenan family – dad Roy (Charles Edwin Powell), mom Elaine (Halloween 4’s Danielle Harris), daughter Taylor (Sydney Malakeh), and son Kevin (Wesley Holloway) – go for a weekend getaway at a hotel run by the strange Mr. Lockwood (Re-Animator’s Jeffrey Combs). Well, he runs it after doing away with manager Linda Spring (The Howling’s Dee Wallace). He’s running an online streaming game where a group of masked psychos, one of whom is portrayed by Terrifier’s David Howard Thornton, attempts to kill the hotel’s guests, as gamblers bet on who will “win.” Roy teams up with another potential victim, former cop Dave Burham (Tim Reid), to try to keep his family safe.

I won’t tell you who they play or how they factor in, but the cast also includes Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Tony Todd (Candyman), Bill Moseley (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), and Daniel Roebuck (The Devil’s Rejects). How’s that for an ensemble?

Like the last two Terrifier films, Stream is on the long side, running 123 minutes. It could have used a little tightening of the pace, but for the most part, director Michael Leavy keeps the story sufficiently hopping. Nobody is safe here, so characters you don’t expect to die do. And they die in gloriously gruesome ways. Damien Leone did the special effects makeup, and the manner in which the players slay the guests would make Art the Clown proud. A game of Tic Tac Toe, played by carving into a man’s chest, is especially unhinged.

Enjoyable performances go a long way toward selling the material, and no one is having more fun here than Jeffrey Combs. The actor obviously understands how to walk the line between comedy and horror. He’s perfectly cast as the game’s overseer, giving Mr. Lockwood a humorous edge without dulling the fact that he’s a sicko. Seeing him sharing the screen with so many other notable names from the genre is a real treat.

Stream is not the first movie to suggest how the internet can be used for vile, criminal purposes. It is, however, a picture with a terrific premise that it executes with style. Alternately gruesome and funny, it’s a nice throwback to some of the bolder 1980s horror films that dared to go “big” with their concepts, just accomplished with everything modern-day gore effects can offer.

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