Deadly Still (2018)

Deadly Still earns its chills the old-fashioned way: with a sharp, simple hook—a cursed antique camera—and the kind of creeping atmosphere that makes empty hallways and quiet rooms feel alive. It’s a brisk, entertaining Russian thriller-horror that keeps tightening the screws as friends stumble from casual weekend banter into a nightmare of ominous images and mounting dread. The film’s greatest pleasure is how it turns curiosity into panic, building suspense with eerie mood work and a few genuinely surprising turns that make you lean in rather than tune out. If you need big-budget spectacle or subtle, slow-burn art horror, it may not be your exact flavor, but if you want a smart, creepy ride with a memorable idea, it’s an easy recommendation.

Deadly Still is clearly aiming for a creepy, cursed-object thriller where a single antique camera turns a weekend getaway into a fatal countdown, and the premise itself is the best thing it has going for it. The problem is the execution: the acting often feels stiff, the story jumps into nonsensical territory, and characters make choices that seem designed to move the plot rather than resemble real human behavior. If you need tight logic, believable performances, and escalating tension, this will likely test your patience—and not in a fun way. But if you enjoy low-budget horror as a “so-bad-it’s-funny” group watch and can tolerate predictability, you might squeeze some guilty-pleasure entertainment out of its eerie setup and occasional nasty death ideas.