DEAR DAVID: Movie Review By Matt Boiselle

Starring: Justin Long, Andrea Bang, Augustus Prew

Directed By: John McPhail

Taken from the real-life instance of BuzzFeed comic artist Adam Ellis back in 2017, Director Adam McPhail’s DEAR DAVID tries in vain to capture the chills & frights of a supposed haunting that went viral, and while it’s not a complete loss, this one left a lot to be desired. Step on inside the cold room and let’s slide open the slab & crack this one open, shall we?

First off, I apologize for my lack of material in the past few weeks – the kid here got WALLOPED by our friend, Mr. Covid and it took all the haunting steam outta my soul – but look out, creepos – I’m back in full force and ready to shred the skin off of whatever comes across my review desk, so let’s get to it! As I previously mentioned, this particular film was taken from a (true?) story, and upon the first glances I was readily intrigued by the simplistic premise: a man named Adam (Prew) who works for BuzzFeed as a comic creator, and is somewhat hounded by his boss (Long). Adam’s latest post hasn’t hit all the right notes with his audience, and after one particular internet troll gets under his skin, Adam unflinchingly fires back a rather harsh rebuttal of “DIAF” – in internet slang it means for someone to “die in a fire.” Like I said – a tad on the touchy side, but effective for shutting a keyboard warrior down for the count.

Only problem is, after the comment is tossed out into the web, Adam becomes a target of sorts, and no I’m not talking about online bullying – he’s now neck deep in night terrors and horrific visions of a young boy sitting in his room at night with a cross-section of his brain bucket missing. As the film trucks along, Adam begins to disassociate himself from the ones closest to him, and the terrors grow ever closer…but they never truly reach the audience – that’s the unfortunate part about this production. While I truly love Justin Long’s work in films such as this, even he appeared to be mailing it in, as the rest of the cast delivered stagnant, forgettable performances that were matched by the lackluster scares. Sadly, if you’ve seen the ghastly images in hundreds of films before this, then you’ll recognize the work here as well.

I truly hate to have this as my return-to-reviewing for you all to peruse, but this one let me down immensely on a variety of levels. For those of you wanting a real scare this Halloween season, skip DEAR DAVID and wait until your candy supply runs short…now THAT is true terror, indeed.

Author

Matt Boiselle

At the tender age of 6, Matt was indoctrinated into the horror genre by his mother, who asked him to sit down and watch "The Exorcist" with her - ever since then, it's been a blood-soaked, neon-lit, fever dream of an existence. "You don't make horror...horror makes you."

(Can't remember who came up with this quote, but he was probably off-kilter like I am).