“Something Evil Has Already Set Its Eyes on You…” – Hannah

In the horror genre, mystery plays a pivotal role in stories where the characters strive to uncover the cause behind the terrifying events they face, engaging the audience beyond scares via an instinctive desire for answers/explanations. However, in the case of 2018’s hilariously titled, low-budget horror; Selfie From Hell (or Selfieman in some regions), the central mystery frequently works to its detriment, yielding further questions and nonsensical moments rather than deepening the narrative or its underlying themes. Still, that’s not to say that a compelling mystery would’ve salvaged Selfie From Hell, as this social media-focused horror is an utter failure on every front, generally evoking boredom rather than fear.

Plot Summary: When influencer Julia falls mysteriously ill while visiting her cousin Hannah in Oregon, Hannah turns to Julia’s online content in search of an explanation for her unusual ailment. But, as she digs ever deeper, her cousin’s online activity reveals connections to the dark web, a twisted internet challenge and a malevolent, otherworldly force bleeding into reality…

Selfie From Hell, written and directed by Erdal Ceylan (Demon’s Dawn), was expanded from his earlier short film of the same name, also featuring Meelah Adams. The two-minute short consists of Adams’ character taking selfies in her home before noticing a dark figure behind her in the images, which then consumes her. As a concept for a short film, the idea is serviceable, if a little cheesy, yet doesn’t retain nearly enough depth for a feature-length undertaking, even if Ceylan makes a feeble attempt to incorporate an underlying theme of social media addiction and the dangers of careless internet usage, similar to other gimcrack social media-centric horrors, such as Smiley (2012), #Horror (2015) and Friend Request (2016). Furthermore, the previously mentioned ‘mystery’ at the centre of the film is neither intriguing nor well-constructed, presenting conundrums to the audience with little allure or clarity.

The small cast of Alyson Walker, Tony Giroux, Meelah Adams and Ian Butcher delivers fairly lacklustre performances across the board, in part due to the shoddy dialogue and characterisation, which lack depth, intrigue and any semblance of intentional humour. Regarding the characters’ relation to the plot, Hannah’s investigation into her cousin’s ailment leads her down a rabbit hole linked to a secretive website on the dark web. Here, she meets an enigmatic, patently untrustworthy individual, who gives the Selfieman (the titular creature of the film) a run for his money in the absurd name department with the online handle, F34R3473R, or “FearEater,” a character so cartoonishly malicious that his handful of appearances are rarely taken seriously. Outside of her investigation, there is a dreary romantic subplot between Hannah and her tech-savvy friend Trevor, who aids her in her exploration while secretly harbouring a crush on her, which is as predictable as it is vapid.

Visually, the cinematography by Jeremy Walter Cox is somewhat amateurish, seldom allowing for appealing shots. Other elements of the production, such as the lighting and audio, however, are adequate, which is worth noting as this isn’t always the case with low-budget flicks, especially when they place such strong emphasis on the sights and sounds surrounding their characters. What’s more, the design of the supernatural entity, the Selfieman, is rather generic, appearing only a handful of times as a towering, spindly figure with skeletal features, whilst his abilities, motivation, and the rules he abides by never receive any explanation amidst the fleeting runtime.

Being a low-budget project, Selfie From Hell didn’t have an original score composed for it, despite Peter Allen getting credited as the film’s composer. Instead, the Selfie From Hell employs an assortment of stock music, all of which are hackneyed horror tracks. In many instances, the score also telegraphs each character’s actions, often unnecessarily so, with every moment intended to be frightening or impactful, retaining a bothersome sound cue, whether that be a message arising on a laptop screen or catching a glimpse of a figure in the background of an image, which consistently fails to make these instances startling.

Even with a runtime of only seventy-three minutes, Selfie From Hell feels dragged out and overstuffed with too many ideas, all of them poorly illustrated and vying for attention, mainly because the film would rather focus on pushing a vareity of cheap, bombastic jump-scares instead of making the effort to earn its frights, some of which appear even worse as a result of the inclusion of janky, low-grade CGI to depict the Selfieman and several other supernatural elements. While some of these issues could be attributed to the film’s low budget, others certainly cannot.

In summary, clearly hoping to follow in the footsteps of Lights Out, a 2013 short film later expanded into a feature-length horror release, Selfie From Hell was, in actuality, released to little fanfare, and deservedly so. Candidly low-budget and struggling to sustain its runtime, Selfie From Hell was flawed from its very inception, being based on a short film with a rather tacky concept that only functions as a cheap thrill for horror fans. A one-trick pony with dreadful dialogue, bland performances, and a monumental overreliance on jump-scares, leading me to believe that the filmmakers didn’t give much thought to how a short film building up to a single scare could develop into a feature-length project. Rating: 1/10.