Spree was released last year in August 2020, just in between lockdown’s in the UK. It has now gone straight to Netflix for your viewing pleasure, in case you missed it!
Leading this rollercoaster of a film is Joe Keery, who you may know better as Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington from Netflix’s Stranger Things. The film also stars David Arquette, Sasheer Zamata, Kyle Mooney, and Mischa Barton, and surprisingly – was executive produced by the rapper Drake.
Kurt Kunkle (Joe Keery) is a disturbingly chipper car-sharing service driver in Los Angeles, but his passion is trying to be a social-media influencer (with less than a dozen followers). He constantly streams his life live on the internet, but his status stays the same and he decides he must up his game. Even worse, the kid he used to babysit, Bobby, has thousands of followers, putting Kurt to shame. His new, grand idea is #TheLesson, that sees him poisoning his passengers in his car from some complimentary water he offers them and broadcasting their slow death live across all his channels. From there, chaos truly ensues…
Spree has a lot of energy going around, from Keery’s highly buzzed performance to the use of using cameras from dash cams, iPhones, Instagram feed and CCTV footage – it is relentless. Just when you think it cannot get more twisted, it does. The kills are inventive at times – a sunroof, the poisoned water, rapid dogs but like a car crash, you cannot stop watching. This literal killing spree at times feels like it will never end as Kurt’s relentless hunger for followers begins to pay off for the worse – he becomes Insta–famous, but at what cost?
Kurt is a young man who lacks any real human interaction – and just when he may start to have a rapport with a passenger – he kills them! Hello – Mischa Barton – who we only see for a few minutes. I was left wondering why he had become such a depraved psychopath – yes, his father David Arquette is a downright mess, and sure, he is a loner but how did Kurt get to this point? Spree lacks the depth to explain this in anyway and it feels like a half-baked attempt at satire. If it had been more fleshed out, I can’t help but wonder if it would have made the film more textured, and a more rounded finished product.
Joe Keery absolutely carries this film as the vile (and truly unsympathetic) Kurt. In fact, without him I do not think it would have been as entertaining and they wouldn’t have got the huge Stranger Things audience. Spree feels like it was aiming to be a modern American Psycho, but ends up being more like a forgettable, enjoyably trashy tech-based film like Friend Request. If you’re after a dark, amusing (at times) and unapologetic thriller film, with a strong unnerving lead and plenty of misguided social commentary, this may be the perfect flick for you. It’s a fun ride.
6/10
