A movie that explores the dark side of chasing likes, views, and follows.
The horror genre has long tapped into recent developments in science and technology to provide fodder for its frights. Immediately following World War II, and specifically the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan invented the nuclear-radiation-powered Godzilla and the U.S. followed suit with a rash of giant-insect, rodent, and woman movies. Black Mirror isn’t a horror series, per se, but many of its technology-obsessed episodes certainly fall into that category. As you would expect, Hollywood has released several social media-themed horror films in recent years, from Friend Request to Unfriended to 2010’s already anachronistic Chatroom. It makes sense, of course, because social media is relatively new and massively pervasive, and that combination is ripe for anxiety that can be exploited for scares. I enjoy Black Mirror, but I haven’t given any of the aforementioned films a try. Yes, they look objectively terrible, but anyone familiar with 31 Movies for 31 Days knows that poor quality is hardly a barrier to entry. I think I have stayed away from them because they are simply not for me. I engage with social media to some extent of course (many of you are probably reading this from a Facebook link, after all), but I’m not in very deep. I don’t do Twitter or Instagram or TikTok or any of the many hipper social platforms that I don’t even know about. I don’t follow any traditional celebrity feeds, much less the feeds of people who are famous due to generating social media content. So I was at a bit of a disadvantage going into Spree, a film about the dangers of chasing clicks, likes, and followers at the expense of all else. Nevertheless, I found it intriguing and enjoyable, if not relatable in any way.
Spree centers around Kurt Kunkle (played by Joe Keery, aka Steve Harrington from Stranger Things) as a faux-Uber driver who is maniacally devoted to increasing his meager social media presence. The title of the film refers to both the name of the rideshare company Kunkle works for as well as his plan to go viral. Namely, he intends to murder each of his customers for the day and stream it all for his “fans”. He is so obsessed with gaining followers that he never once seems to consider the legal repercussions of his actions, much less the moral implications. His plan starts off successfully on one hand, in that he is able to murder a handful of people and get away with it, but unsuccessfully on the other, in that his outrageous actions haven’t seemed to drive much engagement across his platforms. Then, through happenstance, he is able to swoop the live streams and followers of increasingly more successful social media influencers that he kills, with the endgame of trying to murder a highly successful comedian (played by SNL alumni, Sasheer Zamata) and reaching the apex of social media stardom.
I had a good time watching Spree, and while it fails to clear the bar for horror or comedy that I would prefer by either of those genres, the novel story and approach to crafting the film made it never less than interesting. Kerry and Zamata are magnetic actors, which helps as well. The filmmakers made the smart decision to include the various comments, emojis and click counts on screen as a bit of a Greek chorus (albeit one with poor grammar and a penchant for name-calling) and a way to depict the relative success of Kunkle’s gambit without resorting to constant exposition. It was a great touch (the film is basically posited as a documentary cleaved together from various live streams after the fact) and I appreciate the amount of work that went into crafting what must have been thousands of individual comments that ring very true to anyone who has spent any time online. I did find myself distracted reading the rapidly scrolling text rather than focusing on the action on-screen, but maybe that was intentional as well? Way to meta-comment on my own relationship with social media, movie.
Spree is far from perfect, and I wish that the main character had experienced even a hint of moral struggle or regret before his inevitable slide into madness. As it stands, he is a wholly one-dimensional character, a stereotype taken to its extreme (inevitable?) conclusion. Still, it was fun, and kind of funny, and certainly something I’ve never seen before. I’ll give it a thumbs up. Now, don’t forget to like, subscribe, comment, and share… or else.
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