Michael (Bear Spiegel), transgender boy, is a bit of a loner who feels misunderstood by everyone, which is why he has taken to drinking and has become slightly addicted to a videogame called Psychic Vampire. Through this game, he has gotten in touch with Gem (Kaatia Fedrow) over the internet, a girl obsessed with the game and one of the most powerful bloggers in the game's blogosphere. And after getting a bit too frustrated at home due to his father's (Hugh H. Hoke III) constant nagging, Michael decides to follow Gem's invitation to come live with her and her little gaming community, even though she lives half a country away. Now Michael finds Gem a tad odd right from the beginning, especially since for her everything is connected to Psychic Vampire, and thus she insists calling Michael by his character name in the game, Tree, but he takes a liking to her housemates, like down-to-earth Truck (Thunder Smith), female identifying stripper Candy (Dylan Mars Greenberg), who eventually becomes her girlfriend, and Gem's boyfriend Chi (Bailey Monroe). Now Chi is actually a girl called Lilly, and Gem pretty much forces her to identify as male so that she doesn't have to identify as lesbian. And this is how Gem terrorizes the whole group, by trying to manipulate everyone while living off her housemates' money. Chi is really hit hardest by this, because eventually Gem has a new boyfriend, Angel (Tate Hoffmaster), but she doesn't only not try to hide it from Chi but actually ties her up to have her watch her and Angel having sex. Eventually, Michael, Candy and Chi all try to break away from Gem, but that's easier said than done, as like it or not, she's the center of the group, and is brilliant at the art of emotional blackmail ...

Basically this is just a very unusual movie: At its core it's of course a housemate comedy, a genre that has of course long become sitcom staple (and thus there's a scene in this movie that features canned laughter), but not like any housemate comedy you've seen before, as it time and again crosses over into stoner movie, psycho thriller, tech thriller and horror territory and is played out by a cast of overly colourful characters. The result could have been a trainwreck but is actually pretty fascinating due to its no-holds-barred attitude to things, coupled with just the right amount of silliness to come off as something welcomely mental but also completely enjoyable.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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