Skillhouse is directed by Josh Stolberg, and the cast includes Neal McDonough, 50 Cent, Caitlin Carmichael, Leah Pipes, John DeLuca, Paige VanZant, Bryce Hall and Ivan Leung
My Thoughts on Skillhouse
So, I watched Skillhouse because I love punishment, and yes it's bad, very very bad. You can thank me later I am letting you know this so you don't have to endure what I did.
You sort of know it isn't going to be very good when you look at the cast, but sometimes your expectations are exceeded, but Skillhouse does a whole load of nothing, yet it thinks it is.
The premise is simple and basic, where ten influencers are locked in a house and forced to play a twisted survival game where likes and attention keep them alive. This could have at least been some dumb fun, but nope.
Let’s start with Bryce Hall. He plays Carter, our lead influencer, and yes, that Bryce Hall, the TikTok guy. In fairness, he’s not awful. He does okay in the early scenes, especially when the character’s just coasting on attitude, but once the script calls for anything more complicated than being annoyed or scared, things go downhill for his acting abilities.
Carter’s story is supposed to have more weight than the others because his sister dies, a rare moment where the movie feels like it might dig into something darker. But instead of building on that, the film just uses it as a background detail, like a checkbox. There’s no emotional arc, no unraveling, just a revenge motive that gets brought up now and then.
The rest of the cast blends together into a vague soup of influencer stereotypes, and none of them are developed beyond one-line descriptions. And that would be fine, as plenty of slashers coast on paper-thin characters, if the film leaned into the kills or the tension. But it doesn’t really do that either.
The deaths are hit-or-miss. Some happen offscreen that feels more like budget-saving than a creative choice, while others have actual gore. You can tell the effects team had fun with a couple of moments, but those moments are too spread out and inconsistent to carry the movie.
Neal McDonough shows up about halfway through and adds a little bit of presence, like he wandered in from a much better project and decided to just roll with it, and 50 Cent also pops in a few times — mostly just to remind you that 50 Cent is in the movie.
The film is meant to be a satire of influencer culture, yet it it doesn’t explore it, it just uses it as set dressing. It’s not a takedown of toxic internet behavior or fake personalities. It’s just a bunch of characters getting picked off in a house that might as well be haunted for how little their internet fame actually matters.
The dialogue is rough, too. There are entire scenes that feel like first drafts. People explain things to each other that no one in real life would say out loud. Some lines sound like they were written to be tweetable, but without any of the wit or timing that makes that work. And when the film tries to be emotional, it mostly just lands with a thud.
The best thing about the film I can say is it doesn’t look terrible. There are a few cool lighting setups, and some decent camera work, even if the editing isn't the best a times.
But here's the real issue. There’s just no point to it. Other influencer horror movies at least attempt a message, even when they fail, you can feel the intent. Skillhouse feels like it was made because someone thought “influencer horror” would be a good hook, and then they just built a generic slasher around it.
The script never challenges the characters or audience. There’s no escalation, no real stakes, and by the halfway point, you’re just watching people go through the motions.
Skillhouse is just an incredibly lazy movie in how it handles its themes, characters, and execution. And because of that, you end up just not caring.
It just exists for the sake of existing, and goes on for far longer than it has any right to.