Home Entertainment: ’Shook’ digital review

There’s no denying that we live in the digital age and that technology has invaded every aspect of our life. The biggest vessel for this invasion has been the smartphone, which has accelerated the adoption of social media platforms, and with them, a whole new way of life. Platforms such as Instagram and YouTube have birthed the latest form of celebrity – the influencer. These people essentially spend their lives advertising products and marketing themselves as they try to reach the widest audience possible, which enables the most successful of them to get paid some serious amount of money. With influencers being so popular, it was only a matter of time before they became the subject of a horror film, and it is with such a group of people that writer and director Jennifer Harrington toys, within Shudder Original, Shook. 

Mia (Daisye Tutor) is a rising social media star. Surrounded by friends with similar aspirations, Mia holds the record amongst them as having the most followers. Desperate to increase their own profiles, her friends beg her to appear on their next planned live stream. Mia however, has committed herself to dog-sitting for her sick sister. What should be a straight forward evening at the old family homestead turns into a night of pure terror as Mia finds herself the target of a sadistic psychopath. Her tormentor has devised a series of fiendish tests that will push Mia to her limits, but in a fame hungry society, is everything exactly as it seems? 

Shook starts well. It introduces the world of the film and the climate of its characters succinctly. Events open at an ‘exclusive’ red carpet for a make-up brand. The red carpet in question is just a media wall in an otherwise empty parking lot, presenting the appearance of pure glamour to those watching on social channels at home, whilst masking the reality. This is just the start of an ongoing commentary from Harrington on the validity of what you see on screen. What might appear perfect is often not, and whilst later events distort and subvert this idea slightly, it all works to signpost to the viewer that things aren’t always what they seem and that you can’t take anything for granted. 

The ‘glitzy’ event introduces us to Mia, a sparkly and smiley beauty who is clearly relishing her time in the spotlight. She doesn’t really have much to do in this scene except look pretty, but it does quickly fill in some of her background. Next up to be introduced are her gang of friends. Rather than create a clunky reason for them to all meet in real-life, Harrington instead introduces everybody through video and text messages on Mia’s phone before jumping onto their social pages, highlighting each member’s amount of followers. It’s a method of storytelling that points out the hierarchy of the group effectively, without necessarily ramming it down our throats. 

By setting up our characters so quickly, Harrington allows maximum time for tension building and scares, and well before the end of the first thirty minutes, the story is well into its darker moments. By getting stuck in so quickly though, Harrington has to then fill the next hour with enough suspense and plot to keep the viewer suitably engaged. Harrington attempts this by constantly switching things up. She clearly understands that the target audience has little attention span and so ensures Shook is bursting with twists, turns, side steps, and pivots. Whilst it keeps the story moving ever forward, and will likely keep those with short attention spans gripped, others may find themselves struggling to fully keep up with what is happening. 

In its atmosphere, Shook emulates that iconic Drew Barrymore Scream opening, but stretches it out to last for almost the entire film. With little time for reprieve and lighter moments, the film focuses solely on horror and thus makes it a great popcorn scary movie. The camerawork once again plays into Scream conventions, keeping close to Mia as she stalks around the empty house. There’s even a couple of homages snuck in, one involving the grabbing of a knife that is framed almost exactly the same as the infamous Scream opening. 

With the concept being dragged out slightly more than it warrants, the story would potentially be better suited to a short format film; though Shook still has plenty to retain the social media addicts. With some interesting commentary of digital selves versus private selves, and perceived reality versus stark truth, Harrington injects the standard tormented babysitter convention with a glossy new facade.   

Shook is available exclusively on Shudder from Thursday 18th February 2021.