At the recent VidCon event in California, many outside of YouTube/Vine culture will not understand its increasing popularity. But, Hollywood is taking notice of these YouTube/Vine stars of tomorrow.
During that week, three movies premiered that had YouTube stars in leading roles including comedies “SMOSH: The Movie,†“Bad Night†and horror film “The Chosen.â€
For “The Chosen,†it premiered in Anaheim with many adoring VidCon fans flocking to have a glimpse of YouTuber Kian Lawley in his acting debut. Lawley, who many of you may not heard of, is an extremely popular and funny YouTuber with over 2.8 million subscribers to date.
Outside of hilarious YouTube clips, vlogs and video challenges, one would be skeptical of a YouTuber’s acting ability. In fact, any YouTuber’s acting ability.
For Lawley’s fans, the good news is that he passed his initial test.
The story of “The Chosen†is about a young man, who must seek sacrifices within the family to save his niece from the clutches of the demonic Lilith. Along with his sister, he must choose six other family members and tensions arise on the choices they have to make.
The movie has certain flaws as not being scary enough (plenty of non-intentional laughable moments) and the directions to choose the certain family members are a bit unbelievable. Certain characters are not flushed out enough, including Sabrina and the mysterious Nun. These two characters failed Lilith’s test, but seem to be too nonchalant about losing their child.
The origination story of Lilith is definitely a fascinating one with her being Adam’s partner in the beginning before Eve. However, due to her actions, she was banished without any chance of bearing children. Thus she seeks to steal other children. But, one question still lingers—why six sacrifices? A smaller number of sacrifices will suffice for the sake of the movie.
Despite certain flaws with the story, Lawley has shown an ability to act despite his YouTube reputation. He shows certain range of distress, fear and tension in the film when it calls for it. If any YouTuber will make a bigger move into Hollywood, Lawley could be the one since other YouTubers focus on comedy like their videos.
The rest of the cast does help Lawley with their actual acting experience. More seasoned actors will include Angelica Chitwood, Elizabeth Keener, Barbara Goodson and Mykayla Sohn.
Child actor Sohn will definitely to be watched in the near feature since she has made numerous television appearances and movies already. There are a quite a few moments with startling scares through the movie in her scenes.
“The Chosen†also marked the directorial of Ben Jehoshua, who co-wrote the story with Barry Jay and Andrew J. Scheppmann.
The film is currently available on Vimeo on Demand today.