Ryan Imhoff's "Stranger" Haunts a Zoom Reunion in ‘Fresh Hell’
Cyber horror isn’t a very well-defined subgenre in horror, but it is recognizable. If the majority of the characters in the film interact through a phone or the internet, or if much of the plot centers around these, then the film may fall under the “cyber horror” category. It’s a category that—though it is gaining popularity in recent years—had a rocky start. Films like The Den (2013) and Unfriended (2014), though innovative, struggled to make use of their virtual environments, particularly with the constraints that a screen-locked perspective puts on plot development. It wasn’t until Searching (2018) that the format proved viable, sparking a flurry of new attempts—especially given the industry shakeup that coincided with the COVID-19 lockdowns and films like 2020’s Host—to capitalize on the trend.
Perhaps it shouldn’t seem surprising that the genre is gaining steam. As we spend an ever-increasing portion of our day staring into a computer monitor, it becomes less implausible that the events of a horror film might either involve the internet or actually be captured on-screen. More specifically, the rapid improvement of video conferencing services like Zoom have made it easier than ever to reliably record film-quality footage at a very low cost. With much of the world forced into isolation in 2020 and 2021, these same services became ubiquitous, opening the door for filmmakers to twist their stories in new directions.
Fresh Hell (2022), directed by Matt Neal and Ryan Imhoff, is the latest in post-pandemic found footage horror films centering around Zoom meetings, and for its part, has no problem identifying itself as a product of the lockdowns, explicitly citing the virus and the unrest it caused in the opening scene. The film starts, naturally, as the film’s protagonist Grace (Lanise Antoine Shelley) logs into Zoom. Grace is the first to arrive at the meeting as one by one her college crew joins her. This first act is a bit of a mixed bag. As each character is introduced, they make it clear that this group hasn’t stayed in touch as much as they might have liked, with several of them commenting on how long it’s been. And yet, much of their conversation jumps straight into some deep and personal issues, skipping past any niceties or even casual life updates or memories. It gives the setup an inauthenticity that can be hard to overlook as it’s going on, but luckily, once it passes, is easily forgotten.
The movie’s intensity gets a serious injection when Laura, the final member of the squad, finally logs into the meeting. Instead of Laura, though, a stranger walks into frame, played by co-director Ryan Imhoff. The Stranger is by far the most interesting character in the film, and Imhoff commands the screen from the moment he’s introduced. Of everyone, Grace is the most disturbed by the intrusion, as everyone else seems to treat the replacement of Laura by the Stranger as more of a joke. Even in the brief moments when they do take the situation seriously, the majority of the friends border on parodying their given personality traits—most notably in lines like, “We can’t call the police, we need to defund the police!” coming from the resident virtue signaling liberal, Kara. Bizarrely, even as the Stranger’s displays almost supernatural abilities, stupefying the group, and especially when strange occurrences begin taking place around each of their homes, they double down on accusing Grace of being paranoid and insisting that nothing is out of the ordinary. More often than not, the jokes and frustrating ignorance of the characters work against each other, pulling in two entirely different directions. On one hand, you want to sit back and watch some unlikable characters do stupid things and reap stupid rewards. On the other, the threat of the Stranger appears too sinister to rest on your laurels. Ultimately, the events work to rope Grace ever closer to the Stranger in a form-breaking third act that holds the tension well.
Despite some shortcomings, Fresh Hell manages to make good use of its resources, not least of which is an absolutely fantastic use of Snapchat filters, serving up easily the funniest moment in the film while maintaining suspense from the time the Stranger enters the film until the end credits. While it may not have been necessary to spell out its pandemic ties quite so explicitly, it’s a decision that, given enough time and distance, may end up providing an appropriate amount of context for what we’ve collectively experienced. I love seeing new concepts and approaches come out of the found footage genre, and Fresh Hell has great execution on some strong ideas. The film shines where it breaks the character-screen barrier. When the Stranger defies the rules of the film as we understand them, it feels so novel, which is important given how frequently we’ve seen formats like this recently. I look forward to seeing what this team comes up with next and watching how they build on what they’ve accomplished here.
Fresh Hell is available now on VOD.
Article written by Ande Thomas
Ande loves the intersection of sci-fi and horror, where our understanding of the natural world clashes with our fear of the new and unknown. He writes about monsters and foreign horror and can also be found over on Letterboxd.
