Content warning: gore

In the early days of the Internet, a struggling inventor makes a deal with an independent personality in his computer program to make his work a success. He needs to bring real life friends over so the computer program can make itself a success. Jump to the present and a social media convention is happening at the same hotel where the inventor’s project failed to launch. Something is making its presence known, preying on the biggest social media influencers there for attention.

Deadcon is a mixed bag of a horror film. There are some great scare scenes. The opening sequence with the inventor is stylish and chilling. Some of the haunting scenes in the wildly different hotel rooms work really well. It’s very Paranormal Activity in its approach, showing one thing has changed before putting the characters onscreen in a very different situation. Those scares are forceful and pronounced.

The big problem with Deadcon is character development. There are multiple storylines happening at the same time with the different influencers, but none are particularly well developed. If you’ve watched enough YouTube, you know who the types are. There’s a daily vlogger, a professional gamer, a squad leader, and a fashion hauler (among others) that are left to be defined by their video content rather than their personalities. There’s not much to latch onto to really care about what’s happening around them.

The evil force in the film is ill-defined, as well. Deadcon is playing in the same area as the Five Nights at Freddy’s series. A metallic pink rabbit figure pops up throughout the film to, frankly, play off that FNAF reference. Little children terrorize the influencers, swarming them on the convention floor and knocking on their doors because they can. Things might be connected to a boy in a photograph from 1984, who may or may not have been with four other children as part of some kind of crime or ritual at the hotel. The hotel staff is clearly hiding secrets, but they try to pretend nothing is actually wrong when anyone questions the weird things that are happening.

By the time the film tries to let the main characters know what is happening, it’s too late. There’s nothing to connect with. Horror films can hide a lot from the audience if the audience is given something or someone to care about. Otherwise, it’s typically better to do a big reveal at the end of the first act and let the scares and victims get pushed into worse and worse situations. It’s all well and good that the fashion hauler loves fries or the daily vlogger wants to quit making videos, but those aren’t a replacement for engaging personalities or conflicts. Characters like this belong in a slasher film where the audience just needs to know enough to identify who is who when the killer comes.

It’s clear that there are answers to the questions left hanging by the end of the film. Deadcon, once again, decides to play in reference rather than substance. Paranormal horrors don’t need to answer every question. There doesn’t need to be a resolution, but there should be a denouement. Deadcon’s third act is thoroughly in J-horror territory, jumping between characters connected by a shared location rather than a shared plot to overwhelm the audience with scares. This can be an effective technique if it feels intentional. As it stands, Deadcon feels like the constant attempts to launch the Ju-On (The Grudge) franchise in America; the scares still hit but the story doesn’t translate.

Deadcon isn’t terrible. It’s just a little bland. The scares are well constructed and the lore of the film isn’t bad. The focus of the narrative is off. The film either needed bigger characters to carry a slower beginning or an earlier focus on the techno/haunting horror going on.

Deadcon is currently streaming on Netflix.

***

Sketching Details is now on Patreon. Subscribe today for as little as $1 a month for exclusive articles, videos, and bonus content.