‘Dear David’ Movie Review: Twitter Thread Gets Stale Horror-Movie Treatment
Photo from Lionsgate
From Jeremy Kibler
Sleep paralysis is a very real thing, and apparently so was the then-Twitter thread that’s the basis for director John McPhail’s Dear David. It was in 2017 that BuzzFeed comic artist Adam Ellis started documenting strange phenomena in his New York duplex apartment, only for the thread to go viral. “Dear David” refers to the ghost of a dead child who was killed back in 1996 and thereafter haunted cyberbullies. If someone comes across Dear David online, they can only ask him two questions, never three, or else. Was it all real or just a writer’s hoax? This movie version doesn’t find an interesting answer.
A charismatic, persuasive Augustus Prew (Almost Love) plays Adam, who already has trouble sleeping and a distant relationship with his crazy mother, but he’s a relatable gay man. He has a supportive boyfriend, Kyle (René Escobar Jr.), and a best work friend, Evelyn (Andrea Bang). In the BuzzFeed workplace, his latest output isn’t being loved by his boss (Justin Long, in his current renaissance of playing jerks in horror movies but playing slightly less of one here). It’s when Adam gives in to the online trolls and tells one of them to “DIAF” (die in a fire). This sparks some weird goings-on in his apartment, especially one night when Adam experiences sleep paralysis. He wakes up, unable to move when he sees the rocking chair by his bed move on its own, until it’s occupied by a little boy missing a chunk of his skull. Things go from spooky, as Adam’s two cats start gathering by the front door at midnight every night, to unsafe, as Adam starts losing time and alienating the people around him before being a danger to himself.
Director McPhail (2018’s lovable Anna and the Apocalypse) and writer Mike Van Waes should be able to get more than enough mileage out of this urban legend-type Twitter thread. For a while, they do, as there’s some fun in seeing how Adam copes with the pesky paranormal activity. It’s no wonder this made for an addictive read on social media, but the anticlimactic execution as a feature-length film seems to entirely miss the point.
The first mistake is being overly literal with the ghost of David. Early on, there’s what amounts to a short film separate from Adam’s story (and this was based on Adam’s thread in the first place). We meet two random teens on a chatroom bullying spree who end up messing with David and regretting it. Without any help from the rough acting by the teens and their clunky dialogue, this thread is so superfluous and gets dropped pretty quickly, so why even include it?
When Dear David actually tries to be a legitimate bumps-in-the-night horror movie, it’s just not as successful. There are a few creepy moments, but too many of the stale, borderline-lazy scare tactics involve static ghosts and corpsy, growling, ooze-drooling faces. However, when it does take on a more psychological approach involving mental health, online abuse, and suicidal ideation, there might have been something here. The bigger takeaway ends up being the importance of open communication in relationships.
If Dear David does anything new, it is the first movie to have a ghost boy reinstall Grindr in front of the protagonist’s boyfriend, so there’s that. But if you’re looking for a more nastily effective horror movie revolving around a cyber ghost and her bullies, stop sleeping on 2015’s Unfriended.
Rating: 2/5
Dear David hits select theaters, on demand and digital on October 13, 2023.
