Iconic Events: Horror. 114 minutes.
Tim Cogshell
From the team behind the “Terrifier “flicks comes “Stream,” the next iteration of the bloody, practical effects series that ups the horror, bringing the entire internet into the game, along with many familiar faces – some of whom will lose those faces. Horror icons Jeffery Combs (Re-animator/Deep Space Nine), Dee Wallace (E.T./Cujo), Danielle Harris (Halloween), Tim Reid (WKRP In Cincinnati), and the late great Tony Todd, the original Candyman, are all in the Stream, even if only for a cameo.
During the Keenan family vacation, they discovered that they are trapped inside a hotel with four masked maniacs who are hunting them for sport and for the entertainment of a live audience on the Deep Web. It’s a pretty straightforward scenario that has been explored in several recent films, including the Ready or Not series and They Will Kill You. Still, it’s a theme that first found its audience with the Terrifier films, with which it has many connections. Stream is directed by Michael Levy. Levy acted in Terrifier and co-produced Terrifier 2. Terrifier director Damien Leone does the special effects in Stream, and David Howard Thornton, Art the Clown himself, plays one of the masked maniacs. It’s obvious which one, because he is still tall, skinny, and scary.
If you are expecting a movie in which many of your favorite scream queens and kings are being stalked and mangled by maniacs, you will get exactly that. Combs and Harris are the principals, but Combs is the one with the juicy business. Stream goes all in on the hope that you’ll care about the Keenan family (which I did) and that you’ll eat up the copious amounts of bloodshed and gore (which I also did). Jeffrey Combs steals the show, and Charles Edwin Powell is a standout as the Keenan patriarch. More of Danielle Harris would have been nice, and at nearly two hours, it could have used a trim. Stream is a classic survival-horror, murder-for-profit, and exhibition flick with a twist at the end that tugs at your heartstrings just before it bleeds out.