‘Shook’ Review: Unliked and Followed – The New York Times

A lot of the characters in “Shook” are low-level social-media influencers, bottom-feeders in a world of self-involved make-believe. Since their lives are constructed on the intersection of voyeurism and exhibitionism, these 20 somethings are good fodder for the sort of horror film the place an omniscient psychopath makes use of intrusive surveillance.

Sadly, “Shook,” which is streaming on Shudder, doesn’t totally exploit this intriguing premise and devolves into far-fetched inanity.

Mia (Daisye Tutor) is a rising social-media princess who, rattled by a homicide, forgoes an important livestream of one thing head-scratchingly mundane to dogsit for her sister, Nicole (Emily Goss). Alas, a mysterious, unseen caller has Mia’s quantity and might observe all her strikes inside Nicole’s home — the film nearly totally takes place in that single location — subjecting Mia to an more and more unhinged barrage of threats and calls for.

For half the movie, the director Jennifer Harrington builds up suspense by encasing Mia in a densely woven community of voice and video messages, calls and texts. Mia’s whole life is filtered via know-how, which is now used in opposition to her, and her cavalier perspective towards privateness backfires as effectively. Tutor acts up a storm contemplating that almost all of her emoting occurs whereas observing a cellphone. Nonetheless, Mia stays a cardboard character searching for blood-soaked redemption.

At its greatest, when it appears as if Harrington needs to pursue a bigger level and satirize Instagrammed lives, “Shook” appears like a garish hybrid of a “Black Mirror” episode and a Nineteen Eighties slasher film — an digital soundtrack largely pulled from the Italians Do It Higher report label is a callback to the artificial John Carpenter scores of yore.

However “Shook” is completed in by its ultimate reveal, which manages to be concurrently unbelievable and traditional. For engagement, we’ll should look elsewhere.

Shook
Not rated. Working time: 1 hour 29 minutes. Watch on Shudder.