This movie is a very weird one to review. Its quality throughout its duration ranges from awful to stupid fun. It is shot and lit relatively well, however, it seems that for as much effort they put into the camera and lighting work, a fraction of it was put into the script, plot, and finding competent actors.
The main character is Tubi's attempt to have a relatable millennial protagonist, but my friends and I all ended up hating his, true crime podcaster persona. Also, the movie tries to make him queer-coded with his family shunning him for a reason we are not privy to, however, it is very clear that the writers are insinuating that he is gay. But in the end, they pulled their punches having him and the final girl become a couple. This might've been Tubi stepping in saying they didn't want a queer main character.
Tubi clearly spent more money on this original than they do on most other ones (see "Shark side of the moon") however their understanding of the dark web is just laughably bad. You could watch 5 SomeOrdinayGamers videos and have a better understanding of it than the writers do.
By the way, the girl killer is on a dark website called "readit" in one scene which I thought was stupidly funny.
This is another one of those "internet bad" movies where movie studios will use the boogeyman of the deep web in order to get unsuspecting people to view the movie.
While not as blatantly exploitative as movies like Unfriended: Dark Web and Megan is Missing, a lot of this movie's "horror" relies on people not having a basic understanding of how the deep web works.
Overall, a fun, stupid movie that you shouldn't show to your cinema studies friends, but a decent one to show to your bad movie friends.
