Can a First-Person Horror Story Make You Sick?
Blair Witch + Mobile = Sickhouse
Imagine that your friend’s social media account got weird one day. Maybe they go camping, out to some old cabin, and they make jokes about it being haunted. You laugh, because it’s kind of stupid, and who believes in ghosts anyway, right?
But then they start hearing things, and seeing things, and freaking out. Then stuff starts to happen to them. Scary stuff. And you’re watching it all unfold, wishing you could do something to help. But they’re too far away for you to get to, so all you can do is wait for updates, and hope they’re okay.
It’s like a horror movie on your phone, but in real time, and in real life.
This is the concept behind Sickhouse, a movie made for the Snapchat social network, produced by Inglorious Media and Hannah Macpherson. If you haven’t seen Sickhouse yet, you can get the basic idea from the trailer here, but I totally recommend you stop what you’re doing and watch the whole thing (yeah, it’s $7.00, but that’s like the price of a cheap movie ticket.)
In case you haven’t heard of it before, Snapchat is a (relatively) new social media service that allows users to take pictures and short videos and share them with friends and followers. It’s very much a ‘live’ service; it’s perfect for on-the-spot and spur-of-the-moment updates.
And with the right story, it’s also perfect for immersive storytelling.
Sickhouse revolves around real-life social media celebrity Andrea Russett. The story kicks off when Andrea’s cousin Taylor visits unexpectedly. This is of course scripted, but no warning is given to the thousands of fans that follow Andrea’s Snapchat account. To them, this is just another interesting day in Andrea’s life.
That is, the audience has no idea they’re now watching a movie. They’ve been incepted, if you will.
Andrea and Taylor meet some boys (this is a teen movie, remember?) and predictably decide to set off on a camping trip to a haunted house they saw on the internet (#seriously?). There’s all the makings of a low-budget horror flick à la Blair Witch: the creepy-looking house, the paranormal activity, make out scenes, injuries and disappearances, and the many looks of fear.
Oh, the many looks of fear.
Now, I know what you’re thinking:
This all sounds suspiciously familiar.
And of course it does. Sickhouse doesn’t reinvent the horror movie.
What Sickhouse does change is the way people viewed the movie. Just as the first filmmakers did, Macpherson and team created an experience very unique to this new medium.
Through Snapchat, the standard “easy scares” that have defined a generation of teen horror flicks became a bit more palatable, and more believable, because the movie ran in real time. This wasn’t people sitting in a cinema waiting for a scare — this was watching something happen to people in real time.
Imagine one of your friends suddenly finds themselves in a world of trouble, and they’re messaging you about it every few minutes. What would you do? You’d do what any sensible person would: try to figure out what’s going on.
Which is exactly what the viewers of Andrea’s Snapchat feed did.
Some believed what they were seeing, and hung on for updates. They wrote comments and hoped for replies. Others (who presumably figured out what was going on) went so far as to create fake accounts on separate social media platforms to play into the illusion (imagine a Facebook account for the masked slasher in Scream).
The ephemerality of Snapchat posts (they only last for 24 hours, then disappear) also drove viewers to continue to check in on Andrea. Missing something important at the time meant you potentially missed it entirely.
We can only imagine the challenges this presented to the cast and crew of Sickhouse. Having to film in semi-real time must have severely tied the hands (no pun intended) of the film crew in comparison to a “normal” movie where time is not as pressing (Snapchat allows for “takes” in that you aren’t forced to upload every video you capture, but can pick and choose).
At the same time, it must have given a real sense of raw-ness to those in on the hoax. What if it had been raining the week of the shoot, for example? The movie would potentially have a completely different feel to it, and a generation of film students would be picking apart Macpherson’s sublime choice of dreary weather to add to the dread.
Andrea said her favorite part of the Sickhouse project was that the audience was “wrapped up” in the mystery and discovery of what was going on. For them, tapping (you can progress Snapchat videos by tapping on the screen of your smartphone) through each scene made it feel less like a movie, and more like something you were actively watching unfold.
And herein we’ve stumbled upon one of the most interesting aspects of this whole project — the entire story is told through the lens of one character’s account. Despite Andrea loaning her phone to Taylor for most of the movie, the audience is initially drawn to, and continues to remain with, the story precisely because it is told through the account of their beloved social media celeb. It’s the currency that Andrea has built with her fans that engages them.
In this brave new media, it’s not enough to sell someone a ticket and get their butt in a seat for a few hours — to capture the attention of a Snapchat user for the requisite days that such a story demands, you’ve got to get them to *really* buy in to the story. And when stories are told through Snapchat and other social media, where the user is at the center of the story, the only interest to be garnered is genuine interest in the character(s).
It’s fascinating to see a horror movie developed specifically for a mobile platform. The clever use of Snapchat made for some interesting results: a gradual build in momentum and excitement, a growing audience watching the story unfold, and a high level of immersion.
However, this immersion does comes at a cost: Snapchat being entirely mobile means creative direction and shot set-up is limited — Sickhouse didn’t win any cinematography awards, and future Snapchat movies likely won’t, either.
On the plus side, it does mean that the barrier to entry is extremely low: any would-be director simply needs a phone, a creative story, and the means to build an audience.
But what other sorts of stories could we tell through this medium? And how important is it that the audience knows it’s real?
Snapchat seems ripe for all sorts of stories, and realism likely won’t be a factor if the characters or story are engaging.
Case in point: wouldn’t it be fascinating if movie studios used Snapchat to tell short vignettes about characters to hype their films? Imagine if the cast of Scott Pilgrim had Snapchat accounts in the lead-up to the movie release, or if Deadpool took you on a tour of his everyday life three or four days before the starting point of the movie.
I wouldn’t care if the characters were real or not; I’d want to see that.
There’s clearly a home for fiction on Snapchat — the key is making it fit within the limitations of the platform while experimenting with stories and characters.
We’re looking forward to seeing what other films might come out next!
Do you know of any other Snapchat movies, or fictional characters on Snapchat? Do you have any ideas for interesting ways to tell stories through social media? Let us know in the responses section; we’d love to hear from you!
Enjoy!
Woven is supported by LongShorts, a social media-based storytelling app. Check it out here for iOS.
