Writer/Director Gregory Siegel launches us into the world of Culturegeist with a digitally provocative and unconventional experience. Siegel skillfully pulls off a tale of mystery and suspense showcasing the perils of modern technology for the content creator generation. He blends a digital version of a found film mystery with a powerfully unique storytelling technique. The audience gets to see the narrative unfold during three distinct time periods, through the lens of the Microsoft Windows’ UI.
Siegel tells this tale from the POV of the front of a computer screen in a voyeuristic canvas of suspense. His camera work exclusively shows what is being displayed on the PC monitors. Riley James (Catherine Sherling) is a modern-day content creator and influencer that dabbles as an amateur conspiracy blogger. In an effort to try to reinvent her website, she is thrown into a mystery twenty-five years in the making and has to unravel and put together the pieces of a technological enigma that has life changing implications and consequences for her world.
Sherling brings a casual and convincing portrayal of a young blogger who is comfortable on camera and has a passion and drive for her work. Her performance doesn’t go over-the-top and she carries the script with a very skillful, exciting, and believable aura. Sherling’s performance helps create a very tense mood while she also comes off as very relatable and authentic. Riley’s sidekick and mentor Jeremy Thomas (Christian Penn) balances Sherling’s performance with a robust comedic sensibility to soften the tense, technical jargon in their scenes. Maddox Doghan (Will Landis) highlights the supporting cast as a dark and maniacal Tech CEO, evoking the mad-scientist business persona of Elon Musk, who has to get out of his father’s shadow. Some of the supporting voice performances from the actors who do not appear on camera seem a bit stilted, but the audience is able to move past those small deficiencies. Siegel put himself into the movie in the role of Vernon Tate, creating a forceful performance that’s quick witted and dynamic.
Culturegeist builds a lot of suspense. The camera movements dramatically zoom in and out of content on the desktop, and is intercut at times with video from web cams or calls. We get a front-row seat to a historical journey from Windows 95 to Windows XP – a treat for techies and coders. Siegel pays attention to the details within each time period and accurately demonstrates the source file and technological limitations from each Windows system. The electronic score from Valve Clinic (Siegel, Liam Humble, Erik Holmstrom) helps build tension, especially since Siegel’s editing is limited to the one computer screen. This visual technique can be very effective because it isolates the audience’s focus, creating a sense of confinement and urgency, while the score heightens the eerie mysterious mood. Since there isn’t camera movement in the cinematography, the use of close-ups and zooms are the tools used to focus the audience’s attention on material that he intends.
The innovative sound design really drives this narrative forward. The audience is spooked by things they hear but cannot see, and Siegal gracefully plays with that technique to heighten the suspense. The editing (Siegel) makes the digital audiences draw parallels to the classic cinematography tropes of Alfred Hitchcock in Rope or Orson Wells in Touch of Evil. Siegal’s eerie original score puts the audience on the edge, waiting to see how this mystery unfolds.
Cultergeist is a unique entry into the world of science fiction and uses technology in a very different and unexpected way. Siegal dazzles the audience with his maverick storytelling, and keeps his audience hungry for more by using a Marvel style post credit stinger. The film is a spine-tingling digital sci-fi thriller that demonstrates to the audience how fearful we should be of technology.
