Spree (2020) is Campy Fun

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Spree is a horror comedy with a simple premise: a driver for Spree (a fictional ride-share service similar to Uber or Lyft) is plagued with the desire for internet fame. He spends his free time streaming video games, making mediocre electronic music, and attempting to leech off of the fame of a friend. His entire life revolves around the unobtainable allure of going viral. One day he decides he's going to do whatever it takes to force the world to pay attention to him.

Joe Keery from Stranger Things is the driving force of the film. His greasy disheveled look and overeager neediness make for a fascinating watch from start to finish, and he's remarkably believable as a socially inept young man scrambling for the limelight. If anyone else was cast as Kurt the movie simply wouldn't be any good, because in the slower dull moments of the movie it's truly Keery's performance that kept me watching.

Most of the fun in Spree comes from the found footage style which it reworks into a film revolving around cell phone footage, webcam footage, and YouTube videos with editing to resemble a sleek phone interface. This has been done in movies like the incredible Searching and the terrible Unfriended, but Spree's entire plot makes this style of film making feel exceptionally relevant.

Admittedly, when I saw the low score this movie has on Rotten Tomatoes I went into it with incredibly low expectations. I don't blame the people who dislike this movie because it's not exactly groundbreaking cinema with a strong message we haven't heard before. The characters are one-dimensional cartoon characters who seem to exist for the sole purpose of getting killed in a film that's worried about you getting too attached to them. It falls into virtually every cliche we've seen in slashers, but Joe Keery and Sasheer Zamata put forth such strong and fun performances that the predictability doesn't drag the film into monotony.

I suppose the fact that I'm shrugging at a mediocre slasher found footage movie saying "it was fine, those two actors were good" says a lot more about the state of film in the midst of a pandemic than it does the actual quality of the movie. But, if you're bored and stuck at home (like everyone else), it's certainly a movie worth renting.

Spree is fun and doesn't stray from the message it wants to deliver to its audience. Who are we giving a voice in the world, and are they really the voices that should be projected? Why do we still show the names and faces of killers while hiding the identities of their victims at the bottom of a clickbait article? We can only hope that someday the act of killing won't be regarded as a shortcut to fame.

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