‘I Am A Channel’ Review
Stars: Christine Vrem-Ydstie, Ryan Imhoff, Joette Waters | Written by Brian Wiebe, Christine Vrem-Ydstie | Directed by Brian Wiebe
In I Am A Channel we watch “an inspiring YouTube influencer becomes convinced she’s a channel to a high plane of existence when she receives an other worldly visitation.” That description actually makes the movie sound much more supernatural than it is because what it is, is much more grounded. That’s not to say that the movie isn’t scary. Perhaps, just not in the way some people will be expecting…
The movie has this air of uncertainty, or more bluntly put, just creepiness, almost from the get-go. I’m not sure if this says more about me than anything else because much of the first half of the movie is just a female influencer, filming her life, chatting to her ‘fans’, and smiling a lot. Perhaps it’s that constant smile that does it because people who are always that happy do often seem a little creepy. Maybe most importantly though is that we always get to see what is happening after the camera is switched off. This is when the lead character Heidi (Christine Vrem-Ydstie) shows that not everything is smiles and roses.
There are some great examples of this – sometimes involving her annoyance at her boyfriend, Rian (Ryan Imhoff), interrupting her by just doing everyday things or living his life outside of her YouTube bubble, or when she goes for a run in the ‘glorious sunshine’, making her ‘feel great’, only for the camera to be stopped and Heidi to wrap herself in her towel because she’s freezing. I’ve seen this kind of thing first-hand from people I know and it’s interesting to see it portrayed this way on film.
But I Am A Channel does go in a slightly strange direction for its final third. Heidi becomes obsessed with this idea that she is a ‘channel’, that she is something special. And like so many people who think this, if you have others that believe you it can become a very dangerous thing. And as the film continues down that path it becomes like a very 2024-style cult movie.
Vrem-Ydstie is very good in the lead role. The actress also co-wrote the movie with director Brian Wiebe, so she most certainly knew exactly how they wanted Heidi portrayed. She plays the kind of person I absolutely do not like in real life but she plays it so there is just a little bit of sympathy there and I think that’s important. You can feel how desperate she is to be liked, to be loved but you also never forget that she’s often not very nice and craves some sort of power. In the role of boyfriend, Imhoff has much less screen time but he uses it well, in often key scenes and the two work off of each other well. But really, the movie is all about Vrem-Ydstie.
There’s been plenty of cult-like horror movies in the past but none that feel quite like I Am A Channel. This movie almost feels like a folk horror set in the city, as strange as that sounds. The first YouTube cult horror film maybe? However you want to describe it, genre fans should be checking it out.
*** 3/5
I Am A Channel is available to watch on Tubi now.
