Stream (2024) review

Dir. Michael Leavy

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★½

There is such a renaissance happening right now in the horror genre that it not only feels deflating when a contemporary film of the genre falls short of your expectations, but it also feels like a cruel robbery of your time given the sea of great options.

For example, you might stumble on Michael Leavy’s Steam, see familiar names like David Howard Thornton (Terrifier), Tony Todd (Candyman), and Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp) in the cast, and believe this unusually long, over two-hour flick is worth your time. Instead, your time would’ve been better spent watching Late Night with the Devil, The Menu, or another horror movie from the last few years that does more with its concept.

Imagine during the golden age of raunchy comedies, when Knocked Up and Superbad were at your disposal, you were someone who settled for Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star.

Ok, maybe Stream isn’t that big of a catastrophe, but it’s also a movie that takes far too long to get going, mistakes lengthy, irrelevant sequences for character development, and has desperately little for the aforementioned fan-favorite horror icons to do once they finally turn up.

The film follows the Keenan family, consisting up of father Roy (Charles Edwin Powell), mother Elaine (Danielle Harris), 11-year-old video-game addict Kevin (Wesley Holloway), and teen daughter Taylor (Sydney Malakeh). Kevin can’t put down the electronics. Taylor is very gifted at sneaking out and stealing alcohol from gas stations. The parents’ solution is to reward these children with a vacation at The Pines Resort, a hotel that appears conventional, but is run by the eccentric Mr. Lockwood (Jeffrey Combs, chewing the scenery like it’s Hubba Bubba).

This ostensibly popular resort turns out to be the island of misfit toys. Staying at the hotel are a couple of French hunks (Andrew Rogers, Jadon Cal), to whom Taylor cozies up quickly, hot tub lovers on their honeymoon (Isla Cervelli, Chris Guttadaro), an ex-police officer (Tim Reid), a belligerent drunk (Daniel Roebuck) and his long-suffering wife (Rose), and a polyamorous trio.

It takes almost an hour for Mr. Lockwood to make the shocking reveal that this resort isn’t what it seems. It was already strange that cash was the only way to pay for a room at the hotel, and the Wi-Fi is down, but he soon makes his intentions clear when he locks all the guests inside and turns loose four masked maniacs tasked with hunting the patrons. Security cameras capture the brutal slayings for a virtual audience on a Dark Web Twitch-esque platform where people can place bets on who they think will be the last alive.

It takes an obscenely long time for Steam to get moving in any direction. Leavy and his trio of co-writers probably thought devoting time to the Keenan family would bolster character development, something with which I’d initially agree, but early scenes prove ponderous. It takes almost 20 minutes before the family is even on the road to the Pines, and that time is spent mostly revolving around mom and dad arguing about what to do with their derelict children. The acting isn’t doing the film any favors in keeping us engaged, so the lone saving grace is when the action finally does begin, some of the kills are well-staged. It’s abundantly clear where most of the time and ingenuity was spent.

The gore is plentiful, which will be a plus for some, but it’s hardly anything worth enduring given the amount of time the story spends languishing in the hands of uninteresting archetypes. The masked killers themselves are mute and speechless, so there’s little interest there. Those observing the game being carried out via their phones and laptops aren’t humanized either, rendering the voyeuristic aspect underutilized to say the least.

How does a film featuring so many horror heavy-hitters — I didn’t even mention Tim Curry, Terry Kiser, and Dee Wallace — fall so very flat? When they’re relegated to, at best, extended cameos. What we’re left with is a concept rife for a second crack in 15-or-so years helmed by someone willing to trim the fat of the screenplay and kick the pacing into overdrive in order to give us something resembling a gore-laden thriller worth our time.

Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Charles Edwin Powell, Tim Reid, Dee Wallace, Wesley Holloway, Sydney Malakeh, Jason Leavy, David Howard Thornton, Liana Pirraglia, Mark Haynes, Daniel Roebuck, Mark Holton, Felissa Rose, Danielle Harris, and Tony Todd. Directed by: Michael Leavy.