Hideous to look at and agonizing to listen to, “Spree” must hold the record for the greatest number of annoying characters in a single movie. Coarsely merging social-media critique and slasher comedy, this shallow take on the evils of internet addiction is as unoriginal as it is unfunny.
Joe Keery plays Kurt Kunkle, a floppy-haired psychopath frustrated that his Instagram followers have numbered in the single digits for more than a decade. A crude sketch of his life thus far includes his excitable father (David Arquette) — a D.J. pursuing his own Xanadu of screen views — and a frenemy (Josh Ovalle) whose online fame far exceeds Kurt’s. Tired of beseeching other influencers to tag him in their feeds, Kurt, a driver for a ride-share service called Spree, hits on a plan: If he murders his more repugnant passengers — a white supremacist here, a mouth-breathing chauvinist there — and live-streams their fates, then his online celebrity will surely explode.
Directed by Eugene Kotlyarenko, “Spree” is an aesthetic nightmare of screens-within-screens, splitting and reshaping and crawling with real-time commentary on Kurt’s bloody deeds. This infection of our movie visuals with hectic impersonations of online behavior has been spreading for a while now, and “Spree” reaches some kind of nadir. Moreover, the film’s lack of perceptiveness — “I May Destroy You” on HBO currently offers far greater insight into the dark seductions of influencer culture — is disappointing. Kotlyarenko seems entirely unaware that his escalation of gore suggests he’s just as thirsty to be seen as his sick protagonist.
Spree
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
