- Directed by: Pablo Absento
- Written by: Pablo Absento, Buddy Giovinazzo
- Stars: Ben McKenzie, Bojana Novakovic, Malcolm Fuller
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 26 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VZfmgLLXgY
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is another “screenlife” subgenre of horror, a film that’s entirely made up of videos, web pages, emails, video chat, etc. And it was brought to us by Apple. A father has to deal remotely with a son in Japan, along with another son and his wife, who are struggling with the supernatural. Bloat is a perfect title – it’s not a bad little story but it’s bloated out into a full length movie that didn’t impress either of us very much.
Spoilery Synopsis
We watch a phone video of a woman giving birth; there’s something wrong with the baby. He reads a text “It’s time to move on. Jack, we’ve lost our child. It’s time to move on.” Jack and Hannah then decide to move to Tokyo. We watch a “Trip planning montage” which looks a lot like an ad for Apple. There’s suddenly an attack in the middle east, and Jack’s leave gets cancelled.
Hannah and her two sons end up going to Tokyo without Jack. We watch Jack and Hannah talking through Facetime. Suddenly, Hannah drops the phone and runs away, leaving Jack hanging. We then see headlines that four boys drowned that day at the park, and Jack’s son Kyle was one of them, but he miraculously survived.
Jack tries to get more information, but it’s hard since Hannah lost her phone and the other son, Steve, can’t use his phone in the hospital. Jack watches news footage over and over. What is that green stuff coming out of Kyle’s mouth?
Afterward, Kyle is different. He bites his brother, but Jack is too busy managing drone strikes to pay full attention.
Jack talks to a psychologist about Kyle’s weird behavior. We see a video of Kyle discussing his drowning experience with the doctor. He then goes on to research PTSD and a website for “PARENTS OF POSSESSED KIDS.”
Kyle wants a drone for Christmas, and he’s also interested in bugs now. Kyle starts texting Jack in Japanese, but he doesn’t speak Japanese. Steve complains that Kyle is different; he eats rotten cucumbers now.
Jack watches an old video of Hannah dumping the dead baby’s ashes in the lake and gets depressed. He then watches some clearly fake YouTube videos of supernatural stuff. We then get a long montage of conspiracy videos and blogs.
Hannah calls Jack and says that Steve has disappeared. Jack gets a video of what Steve did last night; he followed Kyle out to the woods. Turns out, Steve thinks he’s been hanging out with some kind of little monsters. Steve also thinks his mother is back on drugs.
Jack calls his friend Ryan, who’s still in Tokyo, to check on the family. Jack also orders a bunch of “trail cams” for Steve to set up out in the woods. Hannah seems to be in denial about all the weirdness.
Ryan goes to see a Buddhist monk, and he says there’s a “Kappa” in one of Steve’s videos. They usually kill children, not possess them. There was another case about 15 years ago, but the old monk doesn’t know much about that time. “The kappa will swallow the boy’s soul. Then it will be impossible to save him.” It can be killed with fire. Jack researches the previous case, but that boy ended up dying. He then calls the father of the dead boy, who is now in prison for murder.
There’s a typhoon coming in, so there’s no way for Jack to get to Japan. Ryan has night-vision goggles and wants to go watch the kappa in the forest. Jack calls Hannah, who seems to be out of her mind and likely possessed as well.
Ryan sees the kappa in the woods and shoots it, but then his gun jams. Jack watches as the kappa swallows Ryan.
Jack deserts his post and flies to Japan. He finds Hannah dead with her face half-eaten. Jack then burns down the house with Kyle inside. Jack runs back into the burning house but still holds his iphone camera up for us all to see. Apparently it was the sweet spot of killing the kappa with fire while saving Kyle.
In the morning, Jack is arrested for the murder of his wife and military desertion. There’s a court-martial, and he faces a 45-year sentence. Steve and Kyle both testify at the trial.
Brian’s Commentary
TIL what “Screenlife” is. I hate it. It made sense back in the days of COVID when two actors couldn’t be in the same room with each other, but why do it now?
The whole thing is told through Facetime, Skype, texts, Instagram, Google searches, and other computer communications apps. It’s got more screen recordings than one of those Apple Keynote events. Half the time, these people’s WiFi is on the fritz, so we often only get bits and pieces of the conversation.
The hardest thing to believe in this film is that he watched all those online videos without a single annoying ad.
I don’t care for the way it was filmed, but the acting is decent. The main problem is that it’s such a weak story– it felt like a 20 minute short film with far too much padding. And there’s not a real ending, which makes it all worse.
Kevin’s Commentary
I find the “screenlife” genre kind of tiresome and exhausting to watch. They play up glitchy video, bad connections, and so forth when it’s useful. Though it lends to Jack’s frustration and tension in this case. And they could show some things and angles they wouldn’t normally be able to. So I have mixed feelings on this one but it leans toward dislike. The dislike grew as the movie progressed without a lot of progression and remained a pretty weak story.
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