Movie Nation

“Deadstream” is a genial-enough send-up of “found footage” horror, a gory comedy built around a grating streaming TV stunt host whose latest clickbait is a night spent in a haunted house.

As Shawn Ruddy, host of “Wrath of Shawn” videos on LivVid — sort of a Youtube for live-streamers — star and co-writer/director Joseph Winter tries too hard playing a character who tries too hard. That results in a comedy that pegs the annoying meter from the start but only really strings together laughs in the scrambling, perilous and over-the-top third act.

Shawn, who pitches his show as “facing my fears, one dumbass challenge at a time,” has carried out stunts such as dogsledding in his underwear as a “human popsicle,” baiting cops and climbing into a trashcan to be picked up and dumped (and compacted) in a garbage truck.

But he has just come off a “demonetized” ban from LivVid for crossing one line too many with his hijinks.

For his comeback, he’ll face one fear he’s taken pains to avoid addressing — “ghosts.” He’ll spend a night, with a couple of cameras and his mother’s “paranormal” defense kit — Holy water, garlic, salt, crucifix and silver dagger — in “the most haunted house in the United States,” aka “the most haunted not too famous for me to film in,” a Payson, Utah ruin.

He rolls up in the dark, takes sparkplugs out of his battered pickup to guard against the temptation of making a break for it. Then he busts in, locks himself in to further force him to stay, and confronts whatever’s supposed to be scary about this long-abandoned place he calls “Death Manor,” which has suicides and other deaths attached to it.

He’s live-streaming, and interacting with his viewers as he does. If something suspicious happens, they taunt and force him to “check it out.” They order him to “PROVOKE the spirits.” And they’ll pepper him with comment questions that mock him as he attempts his latest feat.

“Did everybody call you ‘Crater Face’ in High School?” he reads one comment aloud. “No, because it was just acne, then.” He endures “fan-splaining” abuse and, with a hand-held camera and a helmet cam, keeps up a steady patter of Shawn shtick.

“Despite what people say, there ARE further depths I can sink to.”

Every now and then, something shocking happens and he catches himself swearing in fright, followed by a “PLEASE don’t de-monetize me, LivVid!”

The POV camerawork and editing are on the money, the makeup and effects on the “good and cheesy” end of the “good” to “cheesy” spectrum. The horror movies referenced (not by title, because Shawn is no fan of the genre) include classics of the “found footage” genre, with not one homage or staged fright here delivering much more than a jolt, and never a chill.

It’s not scary. At all.

And I have to say, despite a lot of joking around from the start, “Deadstreaming” Winter struggles to find and perform a laugh that lands. It’s all pitched in the same in-your-face/energy-drink hyped pace and volume, which all but beats the “funny” out of a lot of the attempted humor.

Not everybody can do pull off that breathless “Billy on the Street” thing.

Still, as the horrors of the night pile up and our live-streaming hero consults with viewers and finds ways to fight back against the things that go bump in the night, “Deadstreaming” picks up.

It finishes better than it begins, if that’s any consolation.

Rating: unrated, gory violence, profanity

Cast: Joseph Winter, Melanie Stone.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Vanessa Winter and Joseph Winter. A Shudder release.

Running time: 1:28

Adam McKay takes a shot at Big Oil in this 1:49 second environmental satire.

“The Falconer” is an engaging account of a true story that manages to be uplifting despite a seriously unsavory wildlife smuggling and selling element.

Set in Oman, this tale of two friends — one Middle Eastern, the other a Westerner — touches on the different ways the developed world and the undeveloped one view wildlife as it tells a story of one friend’s efforts to save his sister, who wants to get out of an arranged marriage.

Tariq (Rami Zahar) and Cai (Rupert Fennessy) are best friends in Oman, but teens looking at significantly different futures thanks to status and family fortunes. Tariq can’t plan much beyond high school. Half-Lebanese, he sort of fits in, so long as the locals don’t quibble too much over his background. Cai may have been born there, but he is Western to the core, an animal lover and aspiring wildlife conservationist who expects to go to college in the West.

They met in school, pal around after hours and even have jobs at the local zoo, which is more of a petting zoo whose employees are seriously unsupervised.

A day of swimming and riding on a friend’s boat on the coast lets them hear the legend of a local one-armed animal smuggler, who lost that arm when a leopard he was trying to bring to Oman got loose on the freighter he was transporting it on. His is a cautionary tale, with a hint of magic (a “djinn” has cursed him and forced him to live alone) might figure into the boys’ future.

Because while Tariq’s sister Alia (Noor Al-Huda) might have had a beautiful wedding to her arranged husband, with the men dressed in their finest dishdasha gowns and the bride adorned with veils and jewels, the fact that she flees it within days means trouble.

If Alia wants a divorce, that means Tariq’s family will have to repay the dowry or “mahr” provided by the groom. As her situation promises shame and worse brought upon his family, Tariq takes to swiping and selling critters who won’t be missed at the zoo — pigeons, hamsters, etc.

Cai, the Western idealist who lectures Tariq and everyone else on the animals, and why the zoo’s new falcon can’t be simply released into the wild without being trained to hunt, finds himself trying to help his friend and fend off his ethical and moral qualms about what they’re doing.

The film, in English and Arabic, gives us a small glimpse of life in the barren desert, striking coastline and sleepy backwardness of Oman.

It nicely contrasts the dire straits Tariq finds himself in with the coddled comfort of Cai, who lives in big house full of exotic animals he keeps as pets.

The falconry of the title takes a while to introduce and a longer while to get back to as the script steps away from this titular plot element to explain Tariq’s dilemma. The moral quandary facing our characters is more a problem for one guy than the other, but it doesn’t take much for Cai to join in on the lax amorality of the place.

“The zoo has no idea how much this is worth,” he says with authority, as if they’re being invited to steal critters to help Tariq help his sister.

Co-writers/directors Adam Sjöberg and Seanne Winslow — documentarians making their feature film debut — spend much of their film wandering off on semi-interesting tangents. Nothing in this is as fascinating as the falcon and what must be done to train her, and every detour included here was added to make the obvious and the inevitable direction the story turns in less obvious and seem less inevitable.

Their mis-directions don’t really work, but that’s not a fatal flaw. It’s still a fascinating dip into a culture and its mores that few films have visited before, and that and the built-in culture clash are reasons enough to see it.

Rating: unrated, PG-worthy

Cast: Rami Zahar, Rupert Fennessy and Noor Al-Huda.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Seanne Winslow and Adam Sjöberg. A Gravitas Ventures release.

Running time: 1:40

There isn’t much mystery or suspense in “Jeepers Creepers: Reborn,” a horror movie whose characters are wholly aware there have been three other films based on this rural Deep South “urban legend.”

A bunch of them even cosplay the demon at the Horror Hounds fan convention which he strikes in this installment of the franchise.

As they know all about “The Creeper,” you’d think they’d be a lot quicker in figuring out how to outsmart the gargoyle who crawls out of the Louisiana muck every 23 years to dress up in scarecrow threads and Freddy Krueger fedora to slaughter humans who fall within his reach.

Screenwriter Sean-Michael Argo and director Timo Vuorensola filmed this in Finland and the UK (many scenes look sound-stagey) and Louisiana, and emphasize the slaughter, not making us identify with the slaughtered, fear for their fates or even anticipate with glee their murder.

A prologue set in the ’60s mimics the earlier “Jeepers” as an older couple (Dee Wallace, “E.T.’s” Mom, bane of the “Critters,” and bit player Gary Graham) is chased — “Duel” style — by an ancient International Harvester truck through the boondocks because they’ve seen the overcoated ghoul dumping bodies down a chute at his tumbledown ruin of a house.

Sydney Craven and Imran Adams play the present-day couple checking into this horror convention, cosplaying and dully-acting the leads whom we are supposed to empathize with. Laine is pregnant, and hasn’t told horror conspiracy fanatic Chase yet. Chase has a ring and hasn’t told her he’s proposing yet.

He’s a nerd and she’s a “scientist,” a biologist who repeats her own “legend” about that seasonal menace of windshields in the Deep South — lovebugs — as fact. Not much of a “scientist.”

Events conspire to send them to “The Creeper’s House” for the night, with a video crew and horror fest booth operator. Wonder who’ll survive? Wonder how this gigantic, winged beast who can drive a stick-shift truck will butcher them?

“The Creeper’s a fairytale, son.”

Because we know this screenplay is going to tell us a lot more “why” than we need to know or care to know. And that’s a sign they didn’t pay attention to more important things, like scripting more interesting characters, more terrifying situations and pithier lines, or getting the actors to buy in and give the viewer something to grab hold of.

Rating: R for violence, gore and language

Cast: Sydney Craven, Imran Adams, Matt Barkley, Peter Brooke, Ocean Navarro, Gary Graham and Dee Wallace.

Credits: Directed by Timo Vuorensola scripted by Sean-Michael Argo, based on the Victor Salva character and movies. A Screen Media release.

Running time: 1:27

Moody, sinister and tense. Leonard C. does that for you, and your movie trailer. The film looks good, too. Nov. 18.

It takes a funeral to bring these two together.

Apple TV has this one. Looks fun.

Margaret Qualley lands a starring role, playing a journalist who meets and tumbles into a shady operator played by Joe Alwyn.

It’s from A24, so we pretty much know it’s going to be good.

Writer-director Carlota Pereda’s “Piggy” is a genre-busting, expectations-defying thriller about a morbidly-obese teen whose has her revenge on those who label her “Cerdita” (little pig.).

Only it’s not a straight-up vengeance story, even though bloody enough to fit under the heading “horror.” We see means girls and small town provincialism, a monstrously oppressive mother who can be nurturing and protective and a serial killer who might be our heroine’s avenging angel.

Every time we relax into our smug “I know where this is going,” Pereda finds a way to trip us up.

Laura Galán plays our plump teen from a plump family. She’s a lonely heroine who stress-eats, comfort-eats and eats eats. Sara works in the family butcher shop, and this being Extremadura, Spain, she has learned her way around a hog carcass, thanks to Dad (Julián Valcárcel) and the bossy, chorizo-making mom (Carmen Machi) who is always criticizing Sara for being “lazy.”

But her parents don’t know Sara’s interior life, or the ridicule she faces from her peers. Her childhood chum Claudia (Irene Ferreiro) may still come in the shop. But outside, with no adults around, Claudia follows the lead of her mean girl pals — the venomous Maca (Claudia Salas) and sidekick Roci (Camille Aguilar) — picking on Sara.

They take their Sara tormenting to its biggest extreme at the spring-fed town pool, where Sara can’t even take a swim in peace.

“Check out her bikini,” Maca sneers, in Spanish with English subtitles. “Her body just swallows it.”

Maca goes so far as to try and hold Sara underwater during her taunting, and we think “Uh oh.” Sara is so frantic to escape underwater that she doesn’t notice the body, tied-up and weighed-down at the bottom of the pool.

As we’ve seen the sketchy guy (Richard Holmes) hanging around the pool earlier, we think “Uh oh” again.

But what will Sara do, when she’s stumbling home, humiliated and in her overwhelmed bikini because Maca stole her clothes and backpack, and she sees the bloodied girls stuffed into the back of the creeper’s truck, pleading for Sara’s help?

The performances are mostly quick sketches of character “types,” but quite good for what they are. The indulgent, overweight dad, the small town cop who has brought his eager beaver son onto the force, means girls being mean, parents who lash-out at everyone when their mean daughters go missing.

Pereda flirts with black comedy, here and there, but never wholly gives in to it. We see Sara’s tearful rage at Maca’s latest bit of social media shaming. She ducks into the meat locker to weep, and we spy a child on the floor, blood on his face. Oh, that’s just her kid brother, taking a nap someplace cool. Off-camera shrieks? Those are just kids frolicking at the pool.

The film’s efforts at body-shaming commentary are also something Pereda considers but doesn’t lose herself in. It can’t be a coincidence that the serial killer has a bit of a pot belly himself. As in the French film “Fat Girl,” there’s a hint of Sara being so lonely and lovelorn that she’s drawn to the first guy to show any interest in her at all, even if he’s a monster.

But give it up for Pereda’s sleight of hand here. She keeps tripping us up, pointing us one way and then taking her movie in another direction.

It’s a hard, pitiless abattoir-edgy film with darkly humorous touches. By the time this little “Piggy” is over, you may find yourself doing what Sara and no self-respecting Spaniard could ever do — swear off pork.

Rating: unrated, graphic violence

Cast: Laura Galán, Carmen Machi, Irene Ferreiro, Julián Valcárcel, Fernando Delgado-Hierro, Pilar Castro and Claudia Salas

Credits: Scripted and directed by Carlota Pereda. A Magnet/Magnolia release.

Running time: 1:40

The Sanderson sisters are back, summoned by a couple of modern day Salem teens who cast a “help our intentions manifest” spell.

But the ladies require supplies for whatever they get up to in “Hocus Pocus 2.” Eldest sister Winnifred (Bette Midler) barks at the girls (Whitney Peak, Belissa Escobido) who lit a candle, spoke an incantation and brought them into our world.

Quick, she says. Take us “to thine apothecary!” Winnifred and dizzy sisters Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Mary (Kathy Najimy) gape in wonder at the modern version of an apothecary’s shop, at doors that open by themselves. It must be a place of great evil and magic.

“OBSERVE sisters, how it glooooows from within with a SICKENING light!”

That’s florescence for you, they’re told. “Wait, didn’t we used to know a Florescence?”

You will never look at Walgreens the same way again.

If there’s nasty on-set gossip from the making of “Hocus Pocus 2,” which reunites three queens of ’80s and ’90s screen comedy for a new kid-friendly romp for Disney, I don’t want to hear it. We see unguarded moments of giggling and affection as well as the odd improvised bit. These three look tickled to be back together.

“Lock up your children!”

And the movie surfs on that wave of good vibes. Midler takes the lead as the unholy trio cover Elton’s “The Bitch is Back” re-written as “The Witch,” vamp through Blondie’s “One Way or Another,” and cackle and threaten and tease, seemingly delighted at revisiting these characters in a sequel to their poorly-reviewed but kid-popular hit from 1993.

Teens Becca (Peak) and Izzy (Escobido) want the original Sandersons around for reasons that aren’t the clearest. They’re feuding with their pretty and popular ex-pal Cassie (Lilia Buckingham), who has a cute jock boyfriend and who also just happens to be mayor’s (Tony Hale) daughter.

Magic shop owner Gilbert (Sam Richardson, always at home in light comedy) has a lot of the 17th century possessions of the Sandersons in his shop, chief among them a living book, “The Manual of Witchcraft & Alchemy.” The sisters are going to need that if they’re going to cope with America in the age of Walgreens.

For one thing, returning to Salem at Halloween means they’re dropping in on the Halloween Festival, where Salem’s most infamous witches are the most popular costume.

“Why are these children dressed like us?”

Don’t even try to explain bobbing for apples to these three.

“Look! You’re drowning a man! How charming! And he’s got an apple in his mouth. Are you roasting him on a spit?”

The witches want to ensure that they get to stick around in this world, and are willing to destroy anyone who isn’t on board with that. Only the young girls have a prayer of stopping them.

One grand touch in this just-funny-enough script is a prologue that shows the Sandersons as young girls, battling the campy and pious town preacher (Hale, again), who wants to straighten out young Winnifred (Taylor Henderson) by marrying her off to a local oaf. She isn’t having it.

“She cannot SPEAK that way to a man!” the locals hiss. And yet, she persisted.

That’s the day these three “weird sisters” went into the forest, met a witchy mentor played by Hannah Waddington, and secured their future as feared conjurers.

Teen actresses always have the best time impersonation the Divine Miss M.

It’s all kind of adorable.

As with the original film, there isn’t a whole lot to this — some good jokes, some jokey tunes, and two very funny women generously taking a back seat to the brassy, sassy redhead who breaks out the cackle and dons the buck-teeth one more time.

I’d say Parker, Najimy and Midler all did a great public service coming back to these characters and deserve the thanks of a grateful nation for giving this their all, giving us a few laughs and a lot of grins and giving legions of little girls Disney role models who aren’t princesses waiting around for some prince to get a clue.

Rating: PG

Cast: Bette Midler, Sara Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Tony Hale, Whitney Peak, Belissa Escobido, Lilia Buckingham, Taylor Henderson, Nina Kitchen, Juju Journey Brener and Sam Richardson.

Credits: Directed by Anne Fletcher, scripted by Jen D’Angelo. A Disney release.

Running time: 1:43

About damned time. Get a room, you two.