Cult fans rejoice because Franck Khalfoun, the director of Maniac starring Elijah Wood (a personal favourite), has returned with a new horror thriller! But alas, don’t celebrate too speedily because the biggest issue with i Lived is that it is a good concept with terrible execution. 

Jeremiah Watkins plays Josh, an online app reviewer who starts to use the cool new i Lived app, which requires him to put in goals and then the app will recommend tasks for him to reach those goals – all in aid of becoming a better and happier person. But things start to take a mysterious turn when the app’s recommendations start to become darker and more sinister. When Josh stops doing these tasks, he finds the lines blur between the power of the app and the world around him. Someone is following him, things aren’t quite as they seem and his world will ultimately be torn apart.

Sounds good right?

Unfortunately for i Lived, the final product plods along looking for boxes to tick to ensure that tropes of the genre are included. Where the film could have become quite ingenious in making a comment on our use of technology in the 21st century, about how reliant we have become on smartphones and apps and about what we would do for self betterment, i Lived instead relies upon cheap shocks and schlocky storytelling. From the dialogue to the performances, none of it seems to meld together in the way it ultimately should have.

i Lived doesn’t have any of the humour, style or character of Maniac and even when the film tries to reveal some twist or other, like making Josh realise where the tasks on the app are really coming from, they feel gimmicky more than gripping. Whilst the first half of the film gives the audience context for Josh’s life and sets up the mysterious nature of the app that everyone seems to be using but no one knows about where it comes from, the second half of the film seems to be running at full capacity with the pace, twists at every corner and lose sight of its initial premise. Whereas it seems the film was set up to be much more ironic and allegorical in nature, Khalfoun places that on the back burner and trades in trashy horror cliche.

Unfortunately this writer can’t really imagine i Lived being remembered for being much more than simply the film that followed Maniac.