Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Safer at Home’ on VOD, a COVID Thriller That Invokes the Horror of Quarantine Zoom Chats

VOD release Safer at Home is a COVID thriller tha- no, wait wait, come back! You tell me you’d rather not try to escape from the overwhelming state of things by watching a movie about that very same overwhelming state of things? I guess I don’t blame you, but remember, art often exists to help us address the difficult stuff ‘n’ things of life ‘n’ shit. Not that this movie is necessarily art, but that’s why we’re here right now, determining whether its cultural caché is worth a crap.

SAFER AT HOME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: OH GOD NOT A TRUMP CLIP AREN’T WE PAST THIS BY NOW. But yes, a Trump clip, from one of the “classic” COVID press conferences where he lied a bunch about everything, as opposed to the other non-COVID ones where he lied a bunch about everything. Then we learn what happened next is not what happened in our own reality: multiple strains of the virus stretched the pandemic well into 2022. Tens of millions of Americans are dead and civilization is a police state with checkpoints and curfews. It’s officially [TITLE OF MOVIE] for all good citizens. Is Trump still president? The movie doesn’t say, but since everything is utter, utter shit, I’m going to make the assumption that he is, and this is an alternate timeline of our own at least mildly better reality.

One thing is the same, though: Zoom. Except the glitches and awkward pauses and people-talking-over-each-other issues have been ironed out, so hooray for this bullshit reality and mark that one in the implausibility column, which will soon be overflowing. Jen (Jocelyn Hudon) and Harper (Alisa Allapach) log into their little digital rectangles to chat. Jen tells her a secret: she’s pregnant — squeeee! — but her live-in BF, Evan (Evan J. Johnson), doesn’t know yet. Evan joins. Then their other pals hop in: Liam (Daniel Robaire) and Ben (Adwin Brown) are a couple, and Oliver (Michael Kupisk) and Mia (Emma Lahana) are another. Harper’s the only alonsie here, because her S.O. is stuck in quarantine in some other state.

It’s Evan’s birthday, and to celebrate, they’d usually go to Vegas and make some happenings stay there. But that ain’t happening, so instead they crack some beverages and take the ecstasy that Oliver sent everyone in the mail. What should they do while waiting for it to hit? Make all of us watching this movie worry that we’re going to sit through a real-time game of Pictionary, of course. It only lasts one round. Same with Never Have I Ever, thank Jebus, although it starts a tiff between Evan and Jen. Instead of letting them have a moment to shout and sort it out, everyone hangs out online and lets the argument harsh their high, and by the way, why does this molly dose seem so heavy-duty? Oliver shrugs. The trip gets especially harsh when Evan and Jen’s argument escalates and — well, no spoilers, but this is right about when Safer at Home transforms into Bad Decisions: The Movie.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: In the COVID thriller sweepstakes, Safer at Home is better than the trash exploitation of Songbird, but isn’t even remotely the entertaining trifle that Locked Down is.

Performance Worth Watching: You get this award if you don’t eyeroll your orbs right out of their sockets.

Memorable Dialogue: Every bad movie has a line in it where the movie reviews itself, and Harper gets it: “I’M SO F—ING OVER THESE SCREENS!”

Sex and Skin: Oliver and Mia tease that they’ll leave the group-chat camera on while they schtup, much to the queasiness of their friends. But they don’t.

Our Take: So the novelty of making a movie set entirely over quarantine group chat wore off about two minutes before the first movie set entirely over quarantine group chat was released. We’re all tired of quarantine group chat. A different point of view would be LOVELY, I tell you. Lovely. Safer at Home doesn’t offer that. Granted, it pushes the boundaries of quarantine group chat perspectives by having every character keep their device pointed at their face no matter how crazy the situation is, thereby invoking the Cloverfield Implausibility Effect, wherein the characters wield the camera in insane situations, and with shockingly passable cinematographical skill, even though their predicaments would be greatly improved and simplified if they set the goddamn camera down.

So what we have here is a very annoying movie that’s 2 contrived 2 B convincing. It presents a plausible problem that’s complicated by the outside world, not just because deadly spores are in the air, but because authorities either can’t be trusted (authoritarian cops) or are overwhelmed (medical-care pros). One character ventures outside after curfew to invoke a half-assed political assertion that police states are bad, and so are policefolk who do bad things. Thanks for that deep insight! Meanwhile, the other participants sit glued to their screens in suspense, comforted only by the packages of toilet paper and disinfectant wipes conspicuously placed in-frame, which are DEEPLY EVOCATIVE because, hey, remember the first couple months of lockdown? Yeah. That sucked. So does something else here.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Maybe real-time Pictionary would have been better? WE’LL NEVER KNOW.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Where to stream Safer at Home