Every major event in modern history breeds a cinematic response. The Vietnam War brought about the video nasties; 9/11 is thought to be responsible for the ‘torture porn’ movement. Donald Trump? He got us American Horror Story: Cult and the Black Christmas remake. But, aside from the enormous death toll, what hath COVID wrought? By necessity, a whole host of quarantine-set-and-filmed genre movies and socially distanced horror stories. When you don’t have any choice but to film your horror movie via Zoom, the whole subtext thing kind of goes out the window.
The latest quarantine genre pic is Untitled Horror Movie, set and recorded in a six-way video chat between a cast of TV stars and the demonic spirit body-hopping between them. Plus Kal Penn, in what accounts to little more (or less) than a Cameo cameo. After learning that their TV show is getting cancelled, the six stars get together to make their own horror movie. When Chrissy (Katherine McNamara) starts waving around old heirlooms and reading ancient incantations, a demon is set loose on the video chat. Rather that than another round of Zoom trivia.
Even before the virus, intrepid filmmakers were turning video calls into cinema – see the likes of The Den and Unfriended – so Untitled Horror Movie doesn’t feel like much of anything new. Following in the footsteps of the mighty Host it feels a little redundant, but at least approaches its demonic possession from a different angle. Director Nick Simon and co-writer Luke Baines is more interested in poking fun at his young airheads than he is in truly tormenting them. They do so with better cameras and sharper banter than most films of its kind, with a script that doesn’t feel like it was just improv’d on the spot.
Thankfully, it has the good grace not to bring COVID into it either, letting the film function as pure escapism. By nature, it’s rough around the edges, but it’s very well-made for what it is. Video chat fatigue may dull its impact, but rather something like this than another round of Zoom trivia.
