A You'tombed Prank Video: Milk & Serial (2024)

Milk & Serial (2024)

Rating: ***

Starring: Curry Barker, Cooper Tomlinson, Adlih Alvarado

It all started as a Youtube video for a channel called "Prank Bros", wherein social media personality Seven plans to pull a birthday prank on his roommate, bestfriend and creative partner, Milk. After acquiring a gun from a shady arms dealer and getting an acting class friend to agree playing the part of a terrorizing crazed gunman, Seven's gag goes swimmingly well with Milk laughing it all off once he gets past the initial shock, even admiring the elaborate planning that went into making it.

Funs and games continue for the party until an odd fella who claims to be Seven and Milk's neighbor arrives to complain about the noise. Creepily. Milk, thinking the guy is a part of an ongoing prank by Seven, antagonizes him, resulting to stranger things happening in the following days after the party. Things involving deadly secrets, manipulations and harrowing deaths.

Written, directed and starring actual Youtuber Curry Barker, despite being advertised as a slasher, Milk & Serial (2024) has more common grounds with a serial killer thriller, one that's done as a twisty, hour-long $800 found footage free to watch on Youtube. It may not sound much, but the film does surprisingly succeed in places one wouldn't expect from a micro-production like this, mainly the acting and the grounded tone its working with. The mystery as to what's going on after the surprise birthday prank could've been a lot better if some of its twists weren't so obvious (the movie is called Milk & Serial and its poster features a creepy blonde man in a transparent mask. Guess who's nicknamed "Milk" and also happens to be blonde?), but the sinister downward spiral to escalating horrors still makes this little passion project a captivating watch for how fluid the direction can get, plus Curry Barker and Cooper Tomlinson play their roles of Milk and Seven respectively with such an impressive range, it's hard not to feel a bit invested to where the plot is leading to. (Overlooking the odd nicknames, of course)

Seeing there's more emphasis here on a nightmare situation brewing than the hands-on handiwork of a masked killer, Milk & Serial (2024) is a little low on the creative kill count and splatter. The most brutal this film got is a savage neck stabbing, but apart from that, it's mostly gun kills and one beating that's mostly offscreen. This is likely not going to serve well passionate gorehounds expecting the typical bodycounting affairs, but if you're in it for unsettling creepiness and distress, then this may not be that big of a set back. 

Though far from reinventing anything, Milk & Serial (2024) shows quality you don't typically find in a lot of do-it-yourself horror titles and that's a respectable feat. Nothing too fancy, but a slight step above low-budget shlock, it's a creeper of a movie that's good enough to try!

Bodycount:

1 male shot

1 female brained with a brick, beaten to death

1 male knifed in the neck

1 male shot

1 male shot

Total: 5