Need help finding a micro budget slasher movie about a slasher "game show" broadcast on the dark web
*AND IT'S SOLVED!* ANSWER IS "MURDERFEST" (2024)! THANKS TO Flimsy-Credit-8196!
I've spent hours looking for this and have exhausted AI trying to find it. It's making me crazy!
I'm looking for a micro budget slasher movie from sometime in the last 14 years, most likely last 5 or less, that I saw in the last couple of years. It's similar in concept and in execution to "Slashers" (2001), "Slasher House" (2012), "The Funhouse Massacre" (2015*)* or the **“**Playing with Dolls” (2015) series.
The movie could have been anytime from the mid-2010s on up, no earlier that 2000 for sure I would expect. I really think it was very recent, as in last few years.
The movie was about a "game show" being broadcast on the dark web. There are four of five slashers competing. Viewers at home vote for their favorites. Throughout the movie it cuts back and forth to several of the viewers or groups of viewers at home, reacting to what they're seeing. The audience was voting live, I believe via comments.
Each of the slashers has a unique "gimmick" and weapon. The slashers were masked characters with themed gimmicks. One of the Slashers was a clown. One of them MAY have had a "grocery" related theme. One of them was female and had a devil worshiper/occultist gimmick. Seems like one of them MAY have had a circular saw weapon. The killers had names/titles almost like wrestling gimmicks. The killers did interact with each other competitively, almost like contestants when they were together or ran into each other, but they also split up and went their own ways. The clown was more bulky/brutish if I remember correctly, NOT talkative or comedic. I believe he was the only one who was mute, with the rest conversing normally, and seems like one of them was VERY talkative and boastful.
There is plentiful ultra-low budget gore. The action mostly takes place in a state park or similar. The victims are people who wander or stumble into the "game zone". They include: a couple in a car looking for a place to have sex, a group of campers (including a husband and wife whose marriage is on the rocks), and a couple of loggers or woodsmen working on lumber with a pickup truck. There was at least one notable kill with the loggers getting killed on one of their pieces of equipment. I thought MAYBE it was a log splitter, but I could be misremembering from "In a Violent Nature", and this could be a different piece of equipment.
The heroine is a young woman, African American if I remember correctly, (*EDIT*: I MISREMEMBERED THIS PART. THE ACTRESS WAS IN FACT BORN IN THE PHILLIPINES), who was a survivor of a previous game. Before the next game she tracks down one of the slasher killers in real life to his home and takes him out, taking his place to infiltrate the game for revenge. The heroine reveal that she replaced one of the killers was early on, then I believe they did a flashback to how she tracked him down, took him out, and took his place. Seems like the killer whose place she took had a masked "grocery" or "bag boy" theme maybe.
I believe there was some show of computer hacking skills in either how she found him, or how she finds out when/where the next game is from his computer, something like that. The heroine was mute only while she was dressed as the slasher whose place she took, other than that she spoke as normal.
After the heroine takes out the slashers one by one, she has a final showdown with the games creator/show runner in his control room. The control room had monitors and computers, but it was in a cabin like single room. He had a gun, but I don’t remember how she took him out. She then hacks the computers and reveals the identities of the viewers to the authorities and the world.
The movie had no synthwave/neon elements, closer to gritty backwoods exploitation, but cheap. I believe it was shot on digital and had that "regional indie horror" look. It was played straight but was closer in tone to tongue-in-cheek than too serious or grimy. . I’m pretty sure this was an American movie, not foreign, don’t even believe Canadian. (*EDIT*: I WAS INCORRECT ON THIS. LETTERBOXD SAYS IT IS INDEED CANADIAN).
It is NOT:
- “DarkGame” (2024)
- “Stream” (2024)
- “Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)
- “Funhouse” (2019)
- “Scare Campaign” (2016)
- “Psycho Night” (2026)
- “Self Reliance” (2024)
- “Follow Me/No Escape” (2020)
- “The Deep Web: Murdershow” (2023)
- “31” (2016)
- “The Furies” (2019)
- “The Slasher App/Ruinville” (2021)
- “The 7th Hunt” (2009)
- "Scare Zone" (2009.
Thanks in advance for any and all help!