Netflix And Chill: Selfie From Hell (2018)

Where to begin with Selfie From Hell? How angry should I allow myself to get? It is a bad film. A very bad film indeed. I thought I would say that at the very start, allowing people to skip this review if they wish, therefore helping to avoid spending more time on this film than necessary.

Hannah (Alyson Walker) is delighted to welcome her cousin Julia (Meelah Adams) for a visit, not really noticing that she seems a bit twitchy and haunted by a looming death curse. It turns out that she is being haunted by a looming death curse, one that allows a nasty demon type to come up to you whenever you take a selfie. This leads, mere minutes into the film, to Julia slipping into a comatose state. Hannah starts trying to get to the bottom of things, which leads her to the dark web, and numerous jump scares.

Written and directed by Erdal Ceylan, developed from the short movie made a few years previously, Selfie From Hell is another horror movie that signifies the very worst elements of the genre. It's not enough to dismiss this because it is aimed at teens. I know teens, I used to be one, and they're not all just after movies that use some of the words familiar to them. Teens can also have taste. And intelligence. And common sense. But you wouldn't think it from some of the worst movies marketed to them. This is a film that doesn't even get the idea of a selfie right, with one scene having a character holding up a phone to the face of someone else and making them watch the front-facing camera while they take photographs. That's NOT a selfie. That's someone holding a phone up and taking pictures of your face!!!

It would be unfair of me to spend too much time complaining about the cast. Walker and Adams aren't great, but they're at the mercy of the incompetence of Ceylan. The same could be said of Tony Giroux and Ian Butcher, one being helpful to our main character and one being a threat to her, but it's hard not to view them as doing an even worse job than the female leads. Tyler A. H. Smith is credited as "Selfieman", which tells you all you need to know about his character.

I've not even started to scratch the surface of how much is wrong with this movie. The lack of ANY logic, despite it thinking it has some. The idea of someone stumbling about the dark web and giving our personal information while they ask questions (it may happen, it may even happen as easily as it is shown here, it just doesn't feel believable at all). The plotting that just assumes viewers will accept a young woman keeping a comatose friend in her home, without requesting medical assistance immediately, while they decide to turn amateur detective. And so much more.

We all know that when someone uploads that perfect shot/selfie to Instagram, or other social media site, that there are 100 other photographs that didn't make the cut. The wrong light, the wrong angle, a blemish that was quickly hidden. This is one of those rejects. In fact, this is the movie equivalent of accidentally uploading a selfie while you were just trying to show your partner how much pain you were in while in the middle of a particularly explosive, and seemingly never-ending, bowel movement.

2/10

This disc is cheap, and yet still far too expensive.
The same disc may seem even cheaper to Americans.