Dislike

Slasher Trash with Panache?

Review: JA Kerswell

A super cynical Russian horror that works as a pastiche of slasher movies as well as a biting satire on celebrity vlogger culture. A group of internet celebrities are tricked into attending a party at a remote house on New Year’s Eve to hawk a new energy drink. There, they are menaced by an axe-wielding psycho in a baby mask and are killed off one-by-one as they repeatedly fail to answer the question of who has paid to have them killed. 
 
Tasha (Mariya Vey) is an internet sensation who has millions of followers but takes a break from the limelight after her cameraman kills himself live on the web after she refuses to go on a date with him. She re-enters online life after she is offered a princely sum to join another seven of Russia’s top celebrity vloggers to sample a new energy drink called Devil’s Power at a remote country house. The house is rigged with microphones and cameras to record their every move Big Brother-style. However, the drink contains a powerful sedative that knocks them all out.
 
On waking, they discover one of their number with a squid and bomb attached to his head. A voice on the intercom tells them that they are playing a game and the question is: who has paid to see them die? If they can answer correctly they will be set free and if they try and escape then the baby-masked killer will get them … 

Arguably, the influencer cult reached its dubious zenith around this time when the film was made in 2015. The filmmaker’s views towards the phenomenon is clear by the use of blown-up images of microscopic parasites displayed throughout the house. An irony, of course is that much the cast was made up with actual Russian social media influencers. DISLIKE could be read as a criticism of North American culture where the practice originated. Indeed, the film regularly mentions Americanisms throughout. One of the influencers, seeing the set-up, jokes before the killings start: “What, a low-budget Russian Saw?” Also, one of the killers tells the unwitting contestants, “No one can accuse us of copying Friday the 13th or Scream, we found our own style.” However, despite its torture porn trappings, the film has more in common with the dark ironies and pop culture slights of the referenced SCREAM series. Like those films, DISLIKE is shot through with jet-black humour and a few absurdities - such as one victim being unable to outrun or swerve away from the killer driving a golf buggy. Not to mention the romantic interlude that happens during a break between the bloody mayhem - which only goes to reinforce how self-obsessed these characters are. The film is also pretty gory, with the deaths often being pointedly ironic; such as one unfortunate having his throat slit with his credit card and another choked with Christmas lights before having her head chopped off.
 
It has been something of a curse of modern slashers to be filled with unlikeable characters to cheer when they die rather than rooting for them to live. And it is hard to think of a group of more unlikeable characters than a bunch of shallow narcissists who make money by whispering erotically or humiliating people for clicks in return for money. However, as the film progresses, some real personalities appear from the cyphers. 
 
Despite the trick of using real-life popular Vloggers, DISLIKE was a major flop at the domestic box office. Slasher movies just don’t seem to resonate with Russian audiences. Earlier examples TRACKMAN  (2007) and SSD (2008) also failed to attract significant numbers.
 
Regardless of financial success (or lack of), the film’s greatest strength is how it peels away repeatedly to show its rotten core. Any more cynical and it might risk leeching all the fun out of it, but it treads a fine light between gallows humour and genuine horror pretty well. If you’re feeling especially misanthropic one Christmas this is one to throw on to ruin Yuletide for all the family. 

Go to the home page.