Spree
Desperate for online fame, a ride share driver formulates a plan to go viral...with deadly consequences.
Related Titles: Unfriended, Ingrid Goes West, #REALITYHIGH, American Psycho
This review contains major spoilers.
By Leanne
Spree is the latest film to hit the big screens (or small screens for viewers at home!) that explores the social media age. Meaning a lot of this film is viewed through the lens of a phone screen constantly rotating round and full of usernames posting crazy comments. These films are becoming increasingly more common as social media has a bigger grip on everyone's life. The genres vary with films like Ingrid Goes West, Eighth Grade, Searching and now Spree all taking a different route but ultimately exploring the obsession with social media and how you are portrayed online versus who you truly are. Some of these films do this a lot better than others with Eighth Grade being one of my personal favourites.
This film had no marketing and I had heard nothing about it until it appeared in the Cineworld listings. I went with no idea about what the film was really about with it's short summary of the plot and wasn't shocked to find that it was social media based. The premise behind this film is a good one, the aim of becoming a social media influencer or be famous online is increasingly common, thanks to the ability of actually making a successful career and even a lot of money out of becoming viral through mainly YouTube but even Instagram, TikTok and Vine (RIP.) It's just a shame that the idea was taken and not executed overly well.
As the film opens, we are introduced to our leading man Kurt Kunkle (Joe Keery) who is immediately shown plugging his YouTube channel and talking to his followers. There is a brief montage of Kurt continuing to do this in different aspects of his life and will feel familiar to anyone who regular interacts with YouTubers or influencers online. He has his own line of merch in the form is hats and shirts but is soon revealed that he rarely surpasses single-digit views. We are then introduced to his "friend" Bobby who is younger but much more successful with this high viewer numbers, this sets the tone of their relationship from the beginning with Kurt's jealousy of his success, despite his younger age.
The film really begins when Kurt begins a livestream titled "The Lesson" where he teaches about becoming famous online while driving around the city in his car with a plethora of cameras as a 'spree' driver (basically Uber.) The name of the company being Spree is interesting as this is what it turns out that Kurt is doing. He is attempting to go viral by going on a killing spree. It starts off tame with poisoned water bottles being used to dispose of his victims on his livestream which Bobby is convinced is fake or a prank. Kurt soon becomes obsessed with proving his actions and goes to more extreme extents to prove his video is real.
On his journey around town picking up a variety of passengers, one of whom is a famous comedian Jessie Adams who is unimpressed and embarrassed by Kurt's obsessive quest for fame and followers. She comes back into the film later and makes fun of Kurt and his obsessive quest during one of her comedy sets to over a million people and the film ends with her eventual continued rise to fame through the murder of Kurt.
As the film progresses, Kurt is featured in Bobby's livestream and gains a mass following. This is where the comment section of social media can be seen in all it's glory and horror. The flow of comments is fast paced but accurate. Full of harassing comments about Kurt and his behaviour, mostly calling him out for being fake and stupid with language that is constantly seen online. He is then egged on by these anonymous commentators to go and murder more people and sent messages about sexual assault. This is common to see on comments sections because of the nature of being able to be anonymous, it's something that almost every online platform has had to tackle.
As for performances, I thought Joe Keery (Stranger Things) was good. His performance progressed from naive, somewhat lovable nerd to that of people pleasing, psycho and tied in with how his actions were changing at a rapid rate. He owned the screen from the moment he was on it, with his awkward interactions with everyone and using every opportunity to awkwardly plug his "brand."
The second half of this film was more enjoyable because it picked up pace. The script was well done in that it was cringe, like some videos online are and the overuse of internet slang and the peace sign was hilarious because it is something seen all too often online. It is an enjoyable film but is a little bit too ridiculous in attempting to get it's message across. As a satire, I understand that it is making fun of social media and the use of it to gain popularity and fame but at times it went a little too far. It's an interesting attempt to comment on societal reliance on social media but it misfires slightly in that it takes everything too far to be taken seriously.
As for this new genre of internet based films, it's not the worst I've seen but there are better films out there, that use the theme to get their point across. From me, this film gets an overall rating of 6.5, it kept me entertained but is not in any way, shape or form the most groundbreaking film I've seen.
Very very often I go into a movie without seeing a trailer or reading a synopsis, and this was the case for Spree. All I knew was that Joe Keery starred, who I recognise from Stranger Things, so I knew that it was a legitimate film, if you catch my drift. There we are sitting in the cinema and the first trailer before the movie was for a horror film, already I'm thinking ffs because they hardly ever show a horror film before a film of any other genre. You may know that horror is probably my least genre of film, so I was preparing myself for a horror and I kind of wasn't wrong.
Spree's story is told pretty much entirely through a phone screen, either via a youtube video or a live stream. We are seeing this type of film being made more and more, which I guess is quite clever because it means that you don't spend so much money shooting the movie and also the audience in 2020 is very used to watching content through a phone screen. As a young adult I consume a hell of a lot of content just on my iPhone, so this style of movie I don't mind at all. I won't talk much on the plot as Leanne has covered the majority, but what I will say is that Joe Keery really puts his all into the character of Kurt Kunkle. He is on screen for the entirety of the film, and he makes Kurt super likeable at the start and somehow maintains this likability even if he is murdering people. He is able to make Kurt super calm and chaotic at the same time, making it hard for the audience to know what move his going to make next.
I did enjoy the run time of 1hr 33 mins. I don't think it could have gone on any longer, the plot had got so ridiculous at the end that there wasn't really anywhere else to go. In terms of the social message that it was trying to put across.... it went over my head a little bit. I mean I know that there is a deeper message going on, about social media and how it can make you into a different person and the lengths people are willing to take just to get noticed online. But for me it just went slightly undetected, which is fine but I think that's why I didn't enjoy it so much. I'll give it an extra point for calling the movie Spree. Spree was the taxi app service that Kurt worked for, the same as Uber, and then Kurt also went on a killing 'Spree'.
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