Sometimes, I’m not even sure they’re good ones. I’m not going to pretend these are perfect movies.

Not to mention the title of nearly every film in this format so far - the aforementioned, plus Open Windows (2014), this summer’s Unfriended: Dark Web (now on DVD), and Bekmambetov ‘s upcoming Profile (2018) - is a damn pun.Īnd yet, remarkably, the Screenlife movies so far are not only experimenting with different brands of a very distinct and shockingly immersive visual style, but they’re also leading with deeply sincere, well-acted, character-centric stories that are often hard to find in tiny-budget horror filmmaking.

There’s a reason nearly every article about Bekmambetov and his new passion not-so-subtly mentions his age: There’s something inherently cynical about a man nearing his 60s diving headfirst into a low-budget/high-profit filmmaking style that relies on subject matter that’s hip with the kids. On its face, it’s a format that can easily come across as cheap and easy, a quick cash-in on a setting all audiences are familiar with. The style was largely pioneered by Russian director and producer Timur Bekmambetov, whose studio, Bazelevs, developed technology to propel production of movies told through laptops, phones, or tablets and has since gone all in churning them out.

Screenlife - the screen-capture-style gimmick-turned-medium used in movies like Unfriended (2014) and Searching (2018) - feels like a textbook bad idea.

Unfriended dark web spotify playlist