'Livescreamers' Plays with the Best of Screen Life Horror [Panic Fest 2024 Review]

​Writer/director Michelle Iannantuono’s Livescream first premiered back in 2018 at the Crimson Screen Horror Film Festival. A screen life chiller following a streamer and a handful of his fans whose lives are threatened by a haunted game, it marked an impressive debut feature from the filmmaker. I’m happy to say that Iannantuono’s sequel, Livescreamers, which recently played at Panic Fest, is even better. Everything, from the tragic performances to the scares and the craftsmanship of the game stealing souls from ill-fated players shows the filmmaker is no longer just here to play…she’s here to win. And oh, is Livescreamers a winner.
 
Set not long after the events of the first film, we’re introduced to a diverse group of gamers that make up the popular YouTube channel of Janus Gaming. For their next livestream, they’ll be playing a supposed indie game dubbed “House of Souls”. But as they soon learn, if you perish in the game, you die in real life. There is no quitting. No cheat codes. No second lives. They’ll have to play through to the end if they want to survive, all while the game tests their relationships to each other and their fans.
 
Though the first film featured a comparatively simple format in which audiences followed a single streamer as he interacted with comments from fans, Livescreamers ups the game with a diverse group of characters. There’s the boss, Mitch (Ryan LePlante), hot white couple, Gwen (Sarah Callahan Black) and Taylor (Coby C. Oram), older Black man, Nemo (Michael Smallwood), a pair of white boys who pretend to flirt for the fans, Jon (Christopher Trindade) and Davey (Evan Michael Pearce), non-binary queer, Dice (Maddox Julien Slide), nerdy Zelda (Anna Lin) and a fan girl who won a let’s play with the group, Lucy (Neoma Sanchez). I mention them all this way because it is their very identities and perception of one another that the game tests in cruel fashion. It uses their secrets, their jealousies, their relationship with their fans, against them. Anyone who has delved into their realm will likely recognize the various torments and struggles as the film takes us behind the scenes of just how trying creating content can be. Smallwood and Slide in particular stand out through some truly heart-wrenching performances, but everyone nails their roles. They get you to care and make it look easy, assuring that it hurts whenever its game over for one of them.

​As for the game itself, I’m blown away by Iannantuono’s vision and craftsmanship (she designed the game, too). Between good graphics and nerve-shredding sound design, Livescreamers plunges the streamers into a digital hell that incorporates elements of iconic horror games. The stormy island manor where the game takes place feels a lot like the Resident Evil mansion, secret rooms and all. Players make choices that affect the gameplay ala Until Dawn, resulting in plenty of horrific surprises along the way. Meanwhile, a big bad Siren hunts them from room to room like the goddamn Nemesis, its terrifying screech filling the candle-lit halls. Through deadly puzzles and reveals that pit the players against each other, the filmmaker instills nail-biting tension equivalent to the adrenaline of chaotic button-mashing. Every other scene feels like a boss battle in which your favorite character might perish. The film only stops squeezing your heart long enough for you to mourn another loss before gripping it with power-glove strength again.
 
Yet Livescreamers is more than a good game of horror. It’s scary. It’s gut-wrenching. And unfortunately, it’s also necessary in what it has to say. Iannantuono doesn’t just comment on the tape-worm nature of a job that eats and eats and eats at content creators while offering little in return. She takes advantage of the opportunity to point the camera at the toxicity of fandom, as well. People who claim to love creators yet act as if they owe them something. Those who pretend to know who they watch, when they don’t truly know anything about them. The vile hatred and objectification that anyone who isn’t a non-white male experiences at the hands of trolls hiding behind keyboards. Iannantuono’s film encourages viewers to reassess their relationship with creators on the internet. To understand that just because you can communicate with that person does not make you best friends, and they don’t owe you anything simply because you’re a “fan”.
 
At times, the dual imagery of what’s happening on stream and in the game can be overwhelming for the viewer. Not every performance remains consistently believable, either. But none of that is enough to detract from the wild ride that is Livescreamers. It’s the rare sequel that surpasses the original and ends up in the upper echelon of screen life horror films. The rewatch value alone of Iannantuono’s riveting banger should earn it extra lives with anyone who gives it a chance. Whatever she does next, I know I’ll be waiting with excitement to hit the start button.

By Matt Konopka