Inspiration for movies can come from anywhere: A book, a dream, a family story, a historical battle. Heck, Kevin Smith cracked a few jokes on his podcast and then yes-anded them into Tusk. Dear David might not be the first major motion picture based on a Twitter thread (that honor belongs to 2020’s Zola), but it is the first horror film to spring from the microblogging site now known as X. And while it has its charms, it won’t be remembered as the first scary Twitter-thread movie, either.
Some brief context: When Buzzfeed staffer and web cartoonist Adam Ellis claimed to be haunted by the ghost of a boy named Dear David – first in his nightmares, and then in his apartment – he documented the ordeal for all to see and judge. Sleep paralysis, cats gathering at the door at midnight, and even moving to a new apartment only seemed to exacerbate the issue plaguing Ellis and his sleep. Director John McPhail understandably takes some artistic liberties with the source material, dramatizing every encounter Adam (played on screen by Augustus Prew) has with his paranormal pest while sprinkling in ample backstory and subplots.
The fictionalized Adam seems to have a pretty decent life. He has work friends at the open-floor-concept BuzzFeed offices. He has a New York City apartment that is somehow bigger than a shoebox. He has a loving boyfriend who is not stingy with affection. And, perhaps best of all, he has two fluffy and magnificent cats. But some of this starts to unravel when he begins to have nightmares that come with terrifying sleep paralysis.
These nocturnal terrors would be bad enough, but soon they begin to escalate. He talks to Dear David in his sleep and soon learns how he died. Then, the boy starts appearing in Adam’s apartment at night while he is frozen in his bed. As Dear David begins encroaching on Adam’s life and his waking hours, the lines between reality and dreams, alive and dead, start to get a bit fuzzy.
All of this is well and good, but there's too much effort put toward plot and character development, at the expense of scares and overall tone. Adam posts about his struggle with Dear David’s visits, just as Ellis did in real life. But the film insists on flirting with the concept of online bullying, without any real intention of committing to that element of the story. The opening scenes contain a flashback to instant-messenger-teasing and catfishing, but there's never any substantive statements about it beyond how much internet trolls annoy Adam. Similarly, Adam’s fear of intimacy is first brought up as a rift between him and boyfriend Kyle (René Escobar Jr.), but then somehow the ghost boy is blamed for their relationship woes. The way this part of the plot plays out is splotchy and only ever a partial thought.
Dear Davd does a solid job of transitioning between playful and sincere. At first, Adam and work friend Evelyn (Andrea Bang) have some fun burning sage and jokingly sprinkling holy water around his place in a half-serious attempt to cleanse the home, but the pivot to a real fear of harm comes along at a good pace. But there are some odd moments dealing with the corporate giant where Adam works and ultimately brings his story to a wider audience. Justin Long plays big boss Bryce, a clear stand-in for BuzzFeed as an entity. He embodies the Steve Buscemi/30 Rock “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme, trying oh so hard to appear relevant to his young staff. Many of the early jokes in Dear David are at his expense, but never at the expense of the website. Given that BuzzFeed Studios is one of the production companies behind the movie, this makes good business sense. But it does make the humor at Bryce’s expense feel defanged and insincere.
Overall, “defanged” is an apt way to describe Dear David. It never makes any major missteps, and aside from an overreliance on lens flares, it is competently assembled. But it never really goes out of its way to be remarkable either. The stakes always feel low, and the entire viewing experience reflects that.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/dear-david-review-twitter-thread-horror-movie