Movie Review: BLOAT

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: March 7th, 2025 / 01:13 AM

Rating: R
Stars: Ben McKenzie, Bojana Novakovic, Malcolm Fuller, Sawyer Jones, Kane Kosugi
Writer: Pablo Absento
Director: Pablo Absento
Distributor: Lionsgate
Release Date: March 7, 2025 (theatrical, digital, VOD)

BLOAT shares a stylistic ethos (and executive producer Timur Bekmambetov) with UNFRIENDED and SEARCHING. Like those films and a few others, including the sublime HOST, BLOAT takes place entirely on the screens of computers and cellphones.

It’s a variation on the found footage horror subgenre, which has a few built-in advantages. For starters, the webcams keep us from wondering why a character is continuing to shoot with their camera when they should be dropping it to grab a weapon and/or run. It also allows for a wider variety of audiovisual formats that keep things lively.

Hannah (Bojana Novakovic) and Jack (Ben McKenzie) are expecting their third child and first daughter, but the newborn dies shortly after delivery.

Understandably devastated, the couple decide to take their two young sons, Steve (Malcolm Fuller) and Kyle (Sawyer Jones), on a healing vacation to Tokyo.

However, Jack is on active duty in the U.S. Army. When there’s an emergency, his leave is canceled and he’s stuck as a military base in the Middle East.

At first, this is fine. Hannah and the boys are having a good time at their rented house in the countryside, making friends with the locals and taking in the scenery.

Then tragedy strikes again. When Kyle goes swimming in a lake with other children, four boys drown. Kyle survives but comes home from the hospital with an odd change in attitude. Video calls between Tokyo and Jack’s base become glitchy, with images of Kyle freezing in strange shapes.

Hannah is increasingly overwhelmed in her role as a single parent. Steve wants to investigate what’s happening to Kyle. So does Jack, but his commanding officer is not sympathetic. Jack enlists old Army buddy Ryan (Kane Kosugi) to help Hannah out and also do some detective work.

Director/writer Pablo Absento ably juggles all the screens-within-screens and weird jagged shots so that we feel perpetually unbalanced. The screen freezes that can be interpreted as peeks at supernatural creatures are intriguing.

The cast is strong, with McKenzie and Novakovic both making us sympathize with their stressed-out characters. Fuller gives Steve a palpable sense of purpose, and Jones is eerie without going over the top as Kyle.

BLOAT is a movie that may have too many competing ideas for its own good. Ryan uncovers some relevant Japanese folklore. At the same time, it’s discovered that the Internet may be especially conducive to paranormal entities. We wait in vain for these concepts to join forces.

The Japanese folklore wins out. Most viewers won’t have heard the specifics before, though the general notion is familiar.

The title of BLOAT also seems a little off-target. It relates to water, as does the plot, but it’s a stretch to connect it to the action.

BLOAT works well enough within its parameters. If it ultimately doesn’t do anything too novel, it’s still satisfyingly creepy.

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