#Content, But Make It a Movie
There are films. There are YouTube videos. Unsubscribe is what happens when those two things accidentally merge in a Zoom lobby and no one has the heart to hit “Leave Meeting.”
Directed by Christian Nilsson and fronted by YouTuber Eric Tabach, Unsubscribe is a 29-minute “horror” short in which a bunch of real YouTubers play slightly-fictionalized versions of themselves on a video call, only to be stalked and killed off by an online troll named Whitey. It’s essentially a Twitch stream with delusions of cinema.
To be fair, the team did pull off something clever: through four-walling (renting a theater and buying all the tickets themselves), they made the film technically hit #1 at the box office for a day during the middle of a pandemic, with a $0 budget and $25,488 in “earnings.” As a viral marketing stunt and a commentary on how meaningless box office numbers can be, that’s actually smart.
As an actual horror movie? Yeah, about that.
Zoom Fatigue: The Feature
Let’s start with the basic premise:
Five YouTubers log onto a video call to celebrate a friend’s birthday. A mysterious user named Whitey joins, weird stuff starts happening, and suddenly the call turns into a low-rent slasher where the knife is broadband and the tension is mostly buffering.
On paper, this is fine. “Horror over video chat” has already been done—and done extremely well—by other films, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room left in the genre. The problem is that Unsubscribe doesn’t bring anything new to the table except a handful of recognizable internet faces and a vibe that screams, “We shot this in a weekend between sponsored posts.”
The structure is basically:
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Banter and clout-flexing.
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Something mildly spooky happens on someone’s camera.
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Everyone overreacts.
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Someone “dies” in a way that would be more shocking if the acting didn’t feel like a second take from a prank video.
The horror never really lands because:
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The performances are pitched to “vlog” level, not “someone is killing you live on camera” level.
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The pacing is off; 29 minutes somehow still feels padded.
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You never forget you’re watching influencers do a bit.
It’s less Unfriended and more “what if a collab video got possessed by a mediocre creepypasta?”
The Influencer All-Stars: Now With Extra Scream
To its target audience, the cast is the selling point:
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Eric Tabach
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Michelle Khare
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Zach Kornfeld
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Thomas Brag
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Sneako
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Tyler Brash
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A smattering of other YouTube names
They all play themselves, which is… part of the problem. There’s no character development here, just “Person you recognize, but now they’re scared.” If you’re already a fan, you might get a mild thrill out of watching them react to horror tropes. If you’re not, it’s like walking into a party where everyone’s famous to everyone except you.
The dialogue feels improvised in that very specific YouTube way—lots of talking over each other, forced reactions, and attempts to riff that never quite translate into actual character moments. In a vlog or challenge video, that energy works. In horror, which relies on precision and escalation, it just feels messy.
Charlie Tahan as Whitey is the lone “real actor” in the bunch, and he does what he can, but the role is basically “mysterious edgy guy on the call.” He glowers, says cryptic things, and orchestrates chaos like a Zoom-based glitch demon. It could have been creepy if the film committed to building him as something more than “haha spooky troll kills YouTubers lol.”
Horror, But Make It Shallow
The biggest sin Unsubscribe commits isn’t being low-budget or silly—that’s fine. It’s being shallow in a way that feels like a missed opportunity.
You’ve got:
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Real-life YouTube personalities playing themselves
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The concept of online toxicity literally turning deadly
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The meta-commentary of manufactured success (that box office stunt)
And yet, the film never digs into any of it.
Imagine a version of this story that actually explores:
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How parasocial relationships and trolling exploit public figures
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The toll constant performance takes on creators
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The idea that YouTubers live and die by the algorithm—so a killer turning their own platform against them becomes a metaphor, not just a gimmick
Instead, what we get is basically:
“You guys are famous. Someone’s killing you on Zoom. Scream more.”
There’s no bite to it. The troll is just “evil because horror movie.” Nobody’s vanity or toxicity comes back to haunt them. No one’s audience turns on them; there’s no commentary on cancel culture, doxxing, or harassment. For a film that literally stars YouTubers in a horror scenario tailor-made for some actual satire, it bizarrely avoids saying anythingbeyond “The internet can be scary!”
No kidding. Have you seen the comment section?
Micro-Budget Is Not the Problem
To be fair, the technical limitations are understandable. This is a 29-minute movie shot entirely as a video call, with no budget, during a pandemic. You’re not getting slick production or elaborate effects. That’s okay. One of the best horror movies of 2020 (Host) did the exact same thing—Zoom horror, minimal runtime, minimal budget—and knocked it out of the park.
The difference is craft.
Where Host used:
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Tension-building
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Smart, character-based writing
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Creative use of the Zoom format
Unsubscribe uses:
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Influencer energy
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“Wouldn’t it be funny if—” ideas
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Stunt marketing
When someone dies in Host, it hurts a little because you’ve gotten to know them, even in 60 minutes. When someone dies in Unsubscribe, it’s just another beat in a sketch. The scares feel more like punchlines than payoffs.
Micro-budget horror can be incredible when it leans on creativity. Here, the creativity went entirely into the box office scheme, not the actual meat of the movie.
The Four-Walling Flex: Great Stunt, Meh Movie
Let’s give credit where it’s due: the “#1 movie in America” gambit was legitimately clever. Renting out a theater, buying all the tickets, and then using the COVID-emptied box office ecosystem to get a micro-movie to technically top the charts? That’s some big-brain loophole energy.
It’s also the best story associated with Unsubscribe—and that’s a problem for the film itself. The behind-the-scenes story is more interesting than the on-screen one. The movie exists chiefly as proof of concept:
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“Look what we did with $0 and a pandemic.”
Impressive? Yes. Rewatchable? Not really.
It’s sort of like when a YouTuber spends a month hyping up a huge stunt video—“I bought an island!” “I survived 24 hours buried alive!”—and then the actual video is 8 minutes of screaming and brand deals. You can admire the hustle while still wishing the content had more substance.
For Fans Only (And Maybe Not Even Then)
If you’re already a fan of the creators involved, Unsubscribe functions as a weird little novelty:
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“Oh look, Michelle Khare in a horror short!”
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“Hey, that’s Zach from The Try Guys getting murdered on Zoom!”
That has some entertainment value, in the same way watching your favorite streamer play a horror game does. You’re not here for the game—you’re here for them.
But if you go in expecting an actual horror film with atmosphere, character, and thematic weight, you’ll probably feel like you accidentally clicked a collab video in the wrong tab.
The runtime saves it from being truly unbearable. At 29 minutes, it’s over before your patience fully rots. But the fact that a sub-half-hour “movie” still manages to drag in places is… not ideal.
Final Verdict: Hit “Leave Meeting”
Unsubscribe is not the worst thing ever made. It’s just aggressively mid—and that’s frustrating, because the ingredients were there for something sharper, meaner, and far more memorable.
Instead, it’s:
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A decent marketing stunt
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A mediocre horror short
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A missed opportunity to really eviscerate internet culture
If you’re deeply invested in YouTube personalities and want to see them scream and die for 29 minutes, go ahead and click “Join.” For everyone else, this is the cinematic equivalent of an overlong prank video: mildly amusing in theory, kind of annoying in execution, and ultimately something you’ll forget as soon as you close the tab.
In the end, the scariest thing about Unsubscribe isn’t the troll or the kills. It’s realizing the movie is basically proof that with the right hack, clout and a gimmick can still get you to #1—whether you’ve earned it or not.
