If foundfootage horror moviesare to millennials,screenlife horror moviesare to zoomers. With an innovative marketing campaign that understood the World Wide Web’s growing impact on culture,1996’s groundbreaking found footage flickThe Blair Witch Projectpaved the way for modern screenlife films of the 2010s and ’20s. And while works likeUnfriended,Searching, andHostskillfully balanced onscreen suspense and multi-tab laptop realism, 2025’s J-horror-adjacent filmBloat(which comes from a producer ofUnfriendedandSearching) sinks in a lake full of tropes and is deficient in scares.
Surfing to Japan on the World Wide Web
Bloat follows a military officer stationed in Turkey as he navigates a crisis when his younger son nearly drowns while vacationing in Japan with his wife and family. As the aftermath of the accident unfolds, the parents become increasingly aware of unusual changes in their son.
From Tokyo-based writer-director Pablo Absento,Bloatfollows an American family’s descent into chaos after a couple’s youngest son has a near-death drowning experience in a lake while vacationing in Japan. When unexpected events in the Middle East send NATO U.S. Army officer Jack (Ben McKenzie) back to his base, his wife, Hannah (Bojana Novakovic), and two sons (Malcolm Fuller and Sawyer Jones) attend the booked family bonding trip without him.
From the P.O.V. of Jack on his work computer, the audience watches strange events in the Japanese countryside unfold via FaceTime calls, texts, WhatsApp messages, et cetera. The behavior of his son Kyle (Jones) becomes increasingly unusual after barely escaping death, and a newfound obsession with cucumbers and insects may hint at something far more sinister than measly trauma. For those who guessed that little Kyle was possessed by an ancient Japanese freshwater demon — aka “the keeper of lakes, rivers, and ponds” — ding, ding, ding!
Exposing international audiences to Japanese culture and mythology is a meritorious act of filmmaking, generally speaking, butBloat’s efforts feel clunky, dizzying, and out of place in the screenlife subgenre. Perhaps a premise rooted in vibrant ancient folklore is instantly dimmed alongside visuals of various abandoned Wikipedia tabs and Amazon shopping carts.
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Wide-eyed Americans visit a foreign land they know little about, mess around a little, and find out that a kappa is going to swallow their little boy’s soul. The “American tourists f*ck around and find out” horror subgenre of sorts is a fun one, withMidsommar,The Green Inferno, andnotorious Italian exploitation filmCannibal Holocaustbeing standouts. The latter two films were shot on location in Peru and Chile, and in southern Colombia’s Amazon rainforest in Leticia, respectively. Meanwhile,Midsommarwas shot in Hungary, which has a very similar landscape to the film’s Swedish setting. And though Japan is one ofBloat’s filming locations,specifically Tokyo and Yamanashi, the country’s unique beauty is lost due to the movie’s screenlife format.
Listen, with an amphibious humanoid creature trying to take his son’s soul in another country, Jack has too much on his mind to clear his tabs and close out apps, making the viewing experience a somewhat stressful one. As such,Bloatpaints a fairly realistic portrait of Jack’s computer-navigating habits, which may be a plus for some viewers who enjoy the screenlife subgenre. Unfortunately, with such realism comes overstimulation. The audience is directed to read Jack’s numerous Google searches (shout out to the MovieWeb Google search result), messages, and emails to keep up with the evolving story, but the screen is often so cluttered that following along is a headache.
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Regarding his frantic internet research, Jack finds his way from Googling “aggressive detached child drown japan infection symptoms” to landing on a “Parents of POSSESSED Kids” forum page in the blink of an eye. He’s more in tune with his children’s needs and safety from his base in Turkey than his wife, who can hardly keep her eye on the tween boys in their shared Airbnb. Hannah reads as an oblivious “wine mom” who blocks out her traumatic past with substances (as does Jack), her children either almost drowning or going missing under her watch.
Her naivety in a foreign country feels less so a symptom of the aforementioned “tourists f*ck around and find out” horror subgenre and more so a symptom of sloppy writing. The only character who feels fully fleshed out is trusty protagonist Jack, who Ben McKenzie (The O.C.) plays with believable dad vibes and charming sincerity. A useless vacay mom and bland kids aren’t the only writing flaws, however. A friend Jack served with in Okinawa, Ryan (Kane Kosugi), is eventually called in for help. When he utters the convenient words, “I know a Buddhist monk,” it’s difficult not to eye-roll.
Poor Internet Connection as a Crutch Means Few Scares
More can be learned about the kappa — a prominent Japanese yōkai — from aquick Britannica read-throughthan from Ryan and the seemingly omniscient Buddhist monk. As legend has it, kappa are about the size of a 10-year-old child, feature a yellow-green hue, and are primate-like with fish scales and/or tortoise shells. They have bowl-sized indents in their heads with hair growing around the rim. And according to Kagawa Masanobu, folklorist and head curator at the Hyōgo Prefectural History Museum, kappa wereonce believed to “drag humans, cattle, and horses into the waterand devour their inner organs and shirikodama (a mythical ball inside the anus).” Early iterations of the water-dwelling, cucumber-loving beings were said to be downright terrifying.
Unfortunately,Bloatfails to give us a genuine peek at the lake demon, relying heavily on supernatural internet interference, distorted videos and images, and night vision terror — which wasn’t all that terrifying. Sure, a bit of implied horror can work wonders (as it does inThe Blair Witch Project), but sometimes, a goopy practical effect or two makes an outlandish story feel tangible and unsettling, no matter the budget. It would’ve been a treat to get a deeper glimpse at Kyle’s inner battle with the kappa, to really believe his soul is being consumed, that he’s slowly becoming some abhorrent lake creature. Perhaps the scariest thing aboutBloatis its clever callback to the dreadedUnfriendedhand-in-blender scene.
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With its hollowed head in the right place,Bloathad the potential to shine a light onawe-inspiring Japanese folklorewhile honoring the beloved J-horror sphere. Its first act surely rouses wonder and curiosity as the audience follows a worried father down a demonic internet rabbit hole, but in the tangled third act,Bloat’s cinematic soul gets swallowed. Grab your cucumbers and seeBloat, which Lionsgate will release in theaters, on demand, and on digital starting on Friday, July 06, 2025.
