With the gore unfolding on Zoom-style calls and home surveillance cameras, the story of online influencers being hunted by a killer is very 2021
Shook opens with a smart satirical visual gag. It reveals the cast of characters, a bunch of female online influencers who pimp out various products, arriving at a swanky event, complete with popping flashbulbs. An edit from another angle shows not all is as it seems, which pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the film: a thriller in the stalk-and-slash tradition but one that keeps pulling the rug out from under the viewer’s expectations.
After the first gory bit of wrong-footing (literally, it involves a shoe as weapon), blonde beauty specialist Mia (Daisye Tutor) emerges as the main protagonist. After she arrives at her family home in the suburbs to watch cute lapdog Chico for her sister Nicole (Emily Goss) for a few days, it gradually becomes clear that Mia and Nicole’s mother died not so long ago, and that the two sisters have a rancorous relationship, mostly because passive-aggressive Nicole resents flighty, irresponsible Mia for not helping out more when their mother was dying. Seemingly surgically attached to her
smartphone, Mia streams updates to her fans, and checks in with other
Friends across town who keep asking her to come over and party with them. But then the neighbour from across the street (Grant Rosenmeyer) reaches out via text and call, and it becomes clear that he might be a suspect in a string of dog and people murders in the area.