When you suddenly find yourself cooped up in your house for reasons that are outside of your control, you might start looking through Netflix recommendations for scary horror movies. I already found myself cooped up in my home years ago for my own personal reasons, but recent events have motivated me to do even more movie watching lately. This is why I come to you with a review for a movie you probably never heard of and probably scroll past if you’re looking at potential horror movies to watch on your streaming services. Deadcon is not the first film like that for me to review, and it certainly won’t be the last. The real question is whether or not you should actually give it a chance or keep scrolling.

Pros

• Neat little horror tricks with things in the background or CGI that doesn’t look terrible for its low-budget

• Somewhat entertaining overt social commentary on the nature of the world of ‘influencers’

• Shorter than 90 minutes

Cons

• A weird opening/premise that seems somewhat pointless in comparison to what occurs in the rest of the movie

• Some effects and ‘scares’ are pretty weak

• Not much of a plot

Plot & Thoughts

View-con, a (hopefully) made-up convention for people to come see their favorite online influencer in person, is taking place at a random hotel in Los Angeles. What do you do at View-con? Who knows and who cares? The really important thing is that it takes place in a hotel that has a haunted floor. Apparently, in the 80’s, a web developer for the original social network you never heard of was staying in the hotel. When his social network project was shut down before the internet even became something for regular people to use, he apparently went on a killing spree. Or maybe it was a ghost…

There’s no real mystery there. It was a ghost and the floor was haunted. Why that particular floor? Why only a couple of specific rooms the hotel manager is still letting guests stay in, despite the high body count over the course of decades? Why does this ghost have a real affinity for this social network that never existed? Again, who knows, and who cares? Certainly not the movie.

The point of Deadcon is just to make overt social commentary about how millennials are stupid, self-absorbed little twits who look at their phones too much and are interested in stupid things, so they deserve to die a horrible death. If that appeals to you, you might enjoy Deadcon. I didn’t really find the movie interesting, entertaining, unique, or remotely scary. However, it did do a few small things with the position of the camera and some props that I thought were impressive for its small budget.

Outside of those neat little tricks though, there’s not a whole lot going on. The other special effects don’t look great. There’s not much tension throughout most of the film. There’s also no real through-line for any of the characters other than them all being influencers at a convention. if it seems like this review isn’t telling you much, that’s because the movie didn’t bother either. If it was a student film project, it’s commendable in some ways. Otherwise, it’s somewhat vacuous trash.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

Deadcon is a small simple horror movie that doesn’t have a plot or agenda other than a clear disdain for human beings who look at their phones too much. It does a few neat little tricks that were enough to make me want to see it through to its end. It’s a dull, mostly humorless little horror film that didn’t offend me but is also not recommendable by any stretch of the imagination.