When “Found Footage” Found Wi-Fi
If The Blair Witch Project was the pioneering grandparent of found-footage horror, Sickhouse is its annoying teenage descendant who won’t stop live-streaming their own funeral. Written and directed by Hannah Macpherson, this 2016 “film” (and I use that term generously) was released on Snapchat — yes, Snapchat — in ten-second bursts of vertical terror. It’s basically the cinematic equivalent of watching someone’s doomed vacation through a cracked iPhone screen while their battery slowly dies.
Starring YouTube personality Andrea Russett (playing herself, because acting is hard), Sickhouse tells the story of a group of social media addicts who trek into the woods to investigate a haunted cabin — and, shockingly, get haunted. It’s The Blair Witch Project for people who think ring lights are ghost repellents.
The Concept: The Horror of Portrait Mode
The first thing to know about Sickhouse is that it was filmed entirely in vertical orientation — meaning if you tried to watch it on your TV, it looked like someone uploaded their camera roll by accident. The “movie” was originally released over several days on Snapchat, which makes sense, because Snapchat is also where good judgment goes to die.
The entire film feels like a prolonged social experiment to see how long viewers can stare at shaky footage before developing motion sickness and a hatred of millennials.
Director Hannah Macpherson clearly wanted to innovate the genre — to merge horror with real-time social media. Unfortunately, the end result feels less like innovation and more like an extended ad for unlimited data plans.
The Plot (Or: Influencers in Peril)
Andrea Russett plays herself, an upbeat internet celebrity whose cousin Taylor (Laine Neil) comes to visit after fleeing some vague “drama” back home — which, in horror terms, means “this person will not survive Act Three.” Together, they decide to visit “Sickhouse,” a haunted cabin supposedly cursed by a figure called the Sickwife. Why? Because apparently, filming your own death is great for engagement metrics.
Along for the ride are two other social media stars, Sean and Lukas, who exist mainly to flirt, vlog, and demonstrate what happens when Darwinism takes a coffee break.
Once in the woods, the group ignores every possible red flag: locals warn them not to go, the legend says “don’t make noise,” and someone literally explains “don’t go inside the house.” Naturally, they do all three, because horror logic demands that stupidity be a renewable resource.
They livestream everything — from campfire conversations to hookups — because nothing says “character depth” like thirst traps in a death forest. Eventually, supernatural stuff starts happening: blurry faces, strange noises, a ghost bride, and — the real tragedy — bad Wi-Fi.
The plot unravels like a Snapchat story you forgot to delete. People get sick, vanish, or die off-screen, and by the end, you’re not sure if you’re watching a haunting or a metaphor for digital burnout.
Acting: Influencers Gonna Influence
Andrea Russett is undeniably charismatic online, but charisma doesn’t necessarily translate to film — especially when the “script” was improvised like a group project gone wrong. Her performance vacillates between “cheerful vlogger energy” and “generic scream queen,” though to her credit, she seems genuinely terrified — possibly of being stuck in this movie.
Laine Neil, as cousin Taylor, starts off awkward and ends up completely unhinged, which at least gives the film some semblance of character development. The boys (Sean O’Donnell and Lukas Gage) are basically human Wi-Fi signals — present, inconsistent, and gone when you need them most.
Improvisation was meant to make the film feel “real,” but it mostly makes it sound like a group chat that got possessed by a ghost.
The Horror: When Filters Aren’t Enough
For a film allegedly about terror, Sickhouse spends an impressive amount of time being boring. The scares are fleeting, blurry, and usually obscured by the camera bouncing around like it’s being filmed by a caffeinated squirrel.
We get fleeting glimpses of the titular “Sickwife,” who looks like she wandered in from a Spirit Halloween clearance bin. The “Sickhusband” makes a last-second cameo that’s supposed to be shocking, but mostly made me wonder if my phone brightness was too low.
Because the story is told through ten-second clips, there’s never enough time to build tension. The editing rhythm of Snapchat — jump cuts, filters, emojis — kills any chance at suspense. You’re more likely to scream from buffering than from fear.
At one point, a character records a message despite having “no reception,” hoping the clips will upload once service returns. That’s not horror; that’s just Verizon’s business model.
The Gimmick: Death by Data Plan
Let’s give credit where it’s due: Sickhouse did something new. It was the first film ever released through Snapchat, and for about ten minutes, it felt revolutionary. Unfortunately, innovation without coherence just leaves you with a migraine and 68 minutes of pixelated nonsense.
The vertical format makes the film feel claustrophobic — but not in a good, Buried-style way. More like, “please rotate your phone, I beg you.” It’s like watching Paranormal Activity filmed by someone who’s too lazy to turn the camera sideways.
The Snapchat conceit also means constant filters, time stamps, and emoji reactions. Nothing kills the mood like a ghost appearing right after a dog-face filter.
The Themes: Fame, Folly, and FOMO
Beneath all the noise and nausea, Sickhouse tries to say something about internet fame and voyeurism. It’s about how far people will go for attention, how social media blurs reality, and how horror thrives on our obsession with watching others suffer.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to appreciate that message when your primary thought is, “Why am I watching this in portrait mode?”
Still, there’s a certain dark irony in watching influencers literally die for clout. The characters’ compulsive need to broadcast their lives becomes their undoing. It’s poetic, in the way a face filter at a funeral might be poetic.
The Ending: Lost Signal
The finale descends into pure chaos. Taylor wanders the cabin alone, filming corpses, wedding dresses, and finally whispering “I’m home” as a ghostly hand lands on her shoulder. It’s supposed to be chilling, but after an hour of shaky footage, it mostly feels like relief that the movie’s finally over.
The fates of the other characters are left “ambiguous,” which is movie-speak for “we ran out of Snapchat stories.”
It ends not with a scream, but with the sound of a phone hitting the floor — an unintentionally perfect metaphor for the whole project.
The Verdict: Snapchat Killed the Horror Star
The Blair Witch Project made us believe in found footage. Unfriended made social media scary. Sickhouse makes you long for a time when horror movies were shot in landscape.
It’s ambitious, yes. Innovative, kind of. But mostly it’s proof that just because you can make a movie on Snapchat doesn’t mean you should.
The real horror isn’t the Sickwife or the haunted house — it’s the realization that a film can be both 68 minutes long and somehow feel like it’s still buffering.
Final Thoughts: Swipe Left on This Haunting
If you enjoy motion sickness, plot holes, and dialogue that sounds like rejected TikTok drafts, Sickhouse might be your jam. For everyone else, it’s a fascinating failure — a bold experiment in storytelling that forgets to tell a story.
It’s less a horror movie and more a cautionary tale about what happens when filmmakers chase trends instead of ghosts.
In the end, Sickhouse is what happens when the “found footage” genre gets lost — in portrait mode, in bad improv, and in the infinite scroll of the internet.
Final Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Mood: Horror for the Wi-Fi Generation
Best Watched With: Dramamine, low expectations, and your phone set to “airplane mode.”
