Abhiroop Das
Co-directed by Joseph and Vanessa Winter, Shudder’s ‘Deadstream’ follows the antics of a livestreamer named Shawn, whose journey goes from comedy to horror when he takes on an abandoned house infamous for its paranormal activity. With an overnight stay at the house being the only way to fix his strained online presence, the protagonist takes every measure possible to make his time more exciting for his audience, but that comes with a price. Before long, Shawn is plunged into a whirlwind of jump scares and inexplicable phenomena, all of which seem intent on bringing him harm. When it becomes clear that a vengeful spirit is after him, he prepares for the worst, but refuses to stay down without a fight. This supernatural horror comedy relies on the structure of a livestream to tell its story and add a layer of thematic inquiry to it, regarding the nature and cost of fame. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Deadstream Plot Synopsis
‘Deadstream’ begins with a livestreamer named Shawn going through a period of professional crisis. Having built an online following by putting himself in increasingly risky situations, the protagonist’s career halts when he gets canceled over his inflammatory statements online. Desperate to resuscitate his following, Shawn decides to spend the night in what is touted to be one of the most haunted locations ever: the Death Manor. Once on site, he sets up several cameras outside and inside the manor, and recounts its macabre history to his audience. The story begins with Mildred Pratt, the original heiress of the house, who grew bored with her mundane lifestyle and took to a life of poetry. However, creative success was hard to find, and an audience even more so. Enter Lars Jorgensen, a wealthy publisher who visited the town and began a relationship with Mildred. The couple exchanged love letters for two whole years, but Lars died days before their marriage, and Mildred took her own life shortly after.
Since Mildred’s death, the house has been cursed, with a death tally of eleven, making it an uninhabitable setting. The rules for Shawn’s challenge are simple: he cannot get out of the house for the entire night, and he must actively respond to everything he sees and every sound he hears. With a sponsorship deal tied to his success, Shawn has no choice but to make things more difficult for himself, which leads him to sabotage his own car and lock himself in the house with no key at his disposal. Before long, the house begins to open itself up to the livestreamer, and each detail pushes him into the darkness even further. When he discovers a strange symbol pasted to the wall, he takes it off without hesitation, triggering an onslaught of paranormal activity no matter where he sets foot in the house. Relief temporarily comes in the form of a safe room, with no ghostly experiences to its record, but the night is simply getting started.
Shawn’s stream takes a more chaotic turn with the arrival of Chrissy, a supposed superfan who has followed him all the way to the Death Manor. Together, they explore every corner of the house and eventually stumble into the basement, which contains the original owner, Mildred’s poetry book. The discovery of a dead animal right next to it prompts the duo to rush back to the safe room. An impromptu Ouija board session goes off the rails when Chrissy attacks Shawn, and he accidentally kills her in self-defence. That detail is twisted further when he confirms that Chrissy is none other than Mildred, whose ghost now wishes to take possession of the protagonist. In that pursuit, she launches a series of ghouls after him, and Shawn’s fight for survival gets livestreamed to millions of people online. Grievously injured and scared for his life, he eventually realizes that the only way to deal with the night is to take every challenge head-on.
Deadstream Ending: Is Shawn Alive or Dead? Does He Survive the Death Manor?
While ‘Deadstream’ seemingly nears Shawn’s triumph by the end of its narrative, a single twist flips that entire notion on its head. The deadly cliffhanger consists of Shawn being surrounded by a number of ghouls; instead, this time, they appear to be following him instead of going on the offensive. It soon becomes apparent that Shawn has simply replaced Mildred as the ghouls’ leader, and from this point on, they are his literal followers bound by satanic forces. This twist seals the deal on the show’s primary metaphor, which involves likening the experience of chasing a social media high to that of a universally recognizable desire to be acknowledged. In the end, the ghouls double as the followers of Shawn’s craft, serving as an extension of his Livvid fandom. Whether he gets out of the house alive remains a mystery, but given the unique nature of his supernatural abilities, severing those ties is an unlikely possibility.
Given that Mildred’s deal with the devil forced her to be trapped in the house for good, a similar fate can befall Shawn, implying that not only is he now a supernatural figure himself, but that he is now bound to be affected by the same malicious forces that made Mildred into a horrifying figure. The fact that his way out is trapped by ghouls only adds fuel to this possibility. Notably, while Mildred’s deal had a specific will in mind, Shawn’s response to the same exists to put an end to her reign of terror. As such, it is possible that the same rules do not apply to him, and he can get out of the house once he wields control over his ghoul followers. Furthermore, it has already been established that the ghouls can be killed with enough force being used. As such, Shawn can take the help of the police to resolve this situation. However, with his devices now destroyed, his sole way of communicating with the outside world has been erased as well.
The decision to end the movie on a cliffhanger is likely an intentional choice on the creators’ part, as it stimulates the exact kind of curiosity that feeds Shawn’s audience within the narrative. To that end, his fate takes on a metafictional turn, addressing the larger thematic underpinnings of the movie, about how social media and a desire to rise to the top can temporarily blind a person to its harmful effects. While Shawn has the potential to break free of the Death Manor and escape in one piece, a darker future is always on the table, with Shawn being consumed by his ghoul followers, either physically or psychologically, till all that remains is a haunted echo of his original desire to be popular. Earlier in the story, Shawn voluntarily chanted a Latin incantation, surrendering his soul to Mildred, and that thread might just rear its head once again in a twisted format. This brings the Death Manor’s function in the story to an ironic finish, kickstarting the cycle once again.
How Does Shawn Defeat Mildred? Where Does She Go?
After briefly escaping the manor and making his way back to his car, Shawn has a moment of epiphany when he discovers a key detail in Mildred’s poetry book. In there, he finds a number of ritual spells and incantations that all seem to be focused on calling on supernatural forces and extracting their satanic powers. This prompts the livestreamer to realize that the only way to truly defeat Mildred is by turning the spell against her and using the same satanic powers to overpower her influence upon the Death Manor. Emboldened, Shawn returns to the house to confront the ghost directly and nearly gains the upper hand on their first exchange. Now with a plan at hand, he tapes an unconscious Mildred to the ground and begins reading the incantation. However, that does not do the trick, and instead she breaks free, disrupting the ritual and nearly killing Shawn in the process.
Shawn finds the key to defeating her midway in the fight when he remembers discovering a severed finger in the house. Believing it to be Mildred’s, he connects the dots to her poems, demanding a sacrifice of flesh to complete the ritual. Without wasting a second, Shawn severs his own index finger for the cause, and that changes the tide of events completely. With the ritual now completed, all of Mildred’s supernatural powers now flow against her, and she finds herself being dragged underground, where a blood-red supernatural realm awaits. This place can be interpreted as the narrative’s version of hell, which firmly ends Mildred’s existence as a haunted spirit within the manor. The positioning of hell within the basement is also relevant, as it is there that Shawn finds the crest containing all of her poetry, the root of it all.
While Shawn’s victory over Mildred can mostly be attributed to his going the extra mile and finishing the satanic ritual, an equal amount of importance can be placed on the psychological component. Shawn begins the movie as a livestreamer desperate to regain his fandom, and it is that set of complicated emotions that the Death Manor, and by extension, Mildred, feeds on. To that end, his transformation into a battle-hardened streamer who is no longer afraid of ghosts becomes the defining change that leads up to her defeat. His readiness to cut off his finger goes further to show the strength of his resolve, as well as his faith in the ritual process. However, there is another, more contrasting element at work, which takes shape in the form of his renewed sense of humility. Prior to the ritual, he sincerely apologizes to his fans for his racist comments and hurtful expressions, and that change of heart is also directly connected to the inner strength that he channels.
Why Does Mildred Haunt the Death Manor?
Shawn’s plan of taking down Mildred is contingent on his understanding of her ghostly origins, and they directly tie into her poetry book. Earlier in the story, we are told that she was a fledgling poet who desperately wanted someone to experience and praise her work. This desire takes on a dark form when he finds the satanic incantations next to her poems, and Shawn soon realizes that the real reason she took her life was not to raise the family she never had, but the audience she wished for. Her lover’s death likely marked the final nail in the coffin, prompting her to go on the path of dark magic to forcefully cultivate a follower base who read her poetry. This is further substantiated by the discovery of the phrase “the pond water is still” in one of her poems, which is frequently whispered by the ghouls. As such, their entire brand of horror gets recontextualized as cries of being trapped in a larger web, with Mildred as its initiator.
Mildred and Shawn’s respective storylines have a lot of parallels, and the narrative intentionally plays on that to create a rich dynamic. Given that both characters are obsessed with being seen and loved for their work, their extreme measures to do so end up finding a common space in the form of the Death Manor. To that end, Chrissy’s inclusion in the story as Shawn’s peer makes the matchup all the more explicit. The fact that Shawn describes Mildred’s poetry as subpar is likely the point where their rivalry begins, and the subsequent fight for survival brings all potent emotions to the forefront. While the narrative punishes Mildred for her cruel exploitation of human agency, it nonetheless casts a sympathetic light on her past, reframing it as a cautionary tale about the perils of chasing fame at the cost of one’s psychological well-being. The fact that Mildred turns into a ghost adds to the tragedy embedded in her story, which is potentially about to be mimicked by Shawn.
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