Selfie From Hell Review
This was such a hard film to watch and not because it was scary but because it was absolutely terrible! I had to pause and stop watching this movie for at least fifteen minutes three times because I found the characters so insufferable and the storyline so messy.
Get ready for a rant! It’s going to be a good one.
Selfie from Hell follows Hannah, a girl who knows the internet but not *that* well, and her cousin Julia who comes to stay and is a YouTuber. Julia does a video on her channel called ‘selfie from hell’ where she talks about this supernatural (I guess) being that comes after you when you take selfies. So 21st century right? Well Julia goes too far and ends up being killed by this monster or by something, to be honest it’s not really explained.
Hannah wants to find out what happened and this leads her to the dark web. Here she meets a man who tells her he can help her if she gives him her email.
Now stop.
First point. Her male friend Trevor told her not to give away any personal info on the dark web because you can never trust who may be on the other side. Isn’t this just common knowledge for everyone though? But yet she complies and doesn’t even try to make up a fake email address or anything! Wouldn’t that be your first thought? Something they can’t trace you back on as it’ll have none of your personal information and won’t be linked up to any of your accounts as it’s completely new and fresh. The only way they could find you is through IP address but even so.
So she talks to this guy who tells her about these thirteen selfies and how every time you take one the killer gets closer to you. He finds out where Hannah lives and kidnaps her and forces her to take thirteen selfies so he can see the monster for himself. I don’t know it was weird. But her friend Trevor saves her before the man takes the last selfie and they escape, finding where the location of the dark web chat room ‘the black room’ where the selfie thing came from is.
They go there and are greeted by a dead body, but he isn’t a dead body, well is but undead. He tries to strangle Hannah but Trevor saves her (again) and they leave. And that’s that. Done ended.
But has it ended?
What was resolved here? What did we learn? Not to go on the dark web? Not to take selfies? Not to start up a YouTube channel? Like I’m so confused! It just made no sense to me and honestly the storyline was ridiculous from the get go.
It was interesting with Julia taking selfies and the monster but once the kidnapper and the undead became involved I became so infuriated. Nothing made sense! It was as if the director read ‘horror 101 for dummies’ and added in everything they could.
But what was even worse was that every moment that was supposed to be scary had a sound cue to it. Oh the doors open, that’s a bwang noise, oh the monster was in her picture, another jumpscare noise. If your moments aren’t scary without the sound then they’re not scary period!
And finally, the one scene that nearly pushed me over the edge into rage quitting this thing, was when Hannah and Trevor are searching for the dark web info and Hannah tells him to leave and go away and how she doesn’t ever want to see him again etc. it was all fake drama to continue the plot and felt so obscure and dumb. He even asks her if she’s fine over and over at pinnacle moments where she should say ‘no I’m not I gave him my email address’ or whatever yet instead she says ‘I’m fine’ and doesn’t let him help. Maybe if you weren’t such an utter idiot all the terrible stuff that happens to you (which to be honest isn’t that terrible) wouldn’t have happened!
I know horror movie characters are supposed to be dumb but this takes the cake. If there was a room 101 this movie would definitely be put in it because it is disgustingly horrendous and no one should ever have to suffer through it.
This should definitely have stayed as the viral short film sensation it was. Much like Lights Out, but at least Lights Out was just a conventional boring horror film.
Rant over.
Moving Picture Review 