A raving mad reinvention of a far too familiar formula breathes frenzied new life into a worn out gimmick on streaming

Horror tends to be more cyclical than arguably any other genre of filmmaking, with the latest trends and crazes hopped onto by all comers and then swiftly beaten into submission after being worn out, done to death, and run into the ground. And yet, every now and then a genuine surprise comes along, and last year’s Deadstream was most definitely that for the flagging arena of found footage.

Shaky cam tales of terror had long since grown irrelevant, but through virtue of little more than ambition and invention, husband and wife duo Vanessa and Joseph Winter – who co-wrote, co-directed, co-produced, and co-edited the underground smash – managed to breathe new life into one of spooky cinema’s most wearying offshoots.

Certified Fresh with a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 91 percent, Deadstream deftly balances its outright shocks and jump scares with laugh-out-loud humor and a sense of overriding irreverence that makes a point of never leaning too far into either camp. Joseph Winter stars as a disgraced influencer hoping to reinvigorate his career, who decides to capitalize on local legends by investigating a supposedly haunted house to livestream the experience.

Wouldn’t you know it, it turns out that the rumors are true and the place is infested with supernatural entities, leading to a desperate race against time and fight for survival. Needless to say, horror is always big business on streaming regardless of quality, but at least subscribers are indulging in some top-tier nightmare fuel after FlixPatrol named Deadstream as one of the most-watched features on Google Play this weekend.