By RICHELLE CHARKOT
Starring Eric Tabach, Gabriel Rush and Kaikane
Written and directed by Dean Alioto
Captured Pictures
These days, people will do just about anything for clicks and views. A person can be innocently zoning out on Instagram or TikTok and then stunned back to reality by some salacious or violent video. Fitness advice on one scroll can very easily turn into a guy breaking his arm trying to bench press more than twice his weight – all thanks to an algorithm that deems videos like this worth pushing, because of humankind’s propensity to gawk. Dean Alioto (The McPherson Tape) explores this phenomenon in THE LAST PODCAST, where an ambitious podcaster obtains the most compelling guest of all: the undead.
Charlie Bailey (Eric Tabach) is a snide, skeptic podcaster whose bread and butter is skewering people who believe in paranormal occurrences. The ruder, funnier and more incredulous he can be, the better. He knows his audience and his audience loves to make fun people they deem weirdos. His girlfriend, Brie (Kaikane), hates how mean-spirited the whole affair is, but sticks by his side as his following continues to grow. Little does he know that his worldview will soon shift when he gets a text from a university professor named Duncan, who claims he can prove unequivocally that there is no such thing as the afterlife. Charlie films with Duncan but finds a lot more than he bargained for.
Though the film has all the makings of a crowd-pleaser, THE LAST PODCAST feels a little long at 98 minutes. All of the crucial pieces are present (fun characters, unique premise, humor, great special effects) but the film slows in the first hour and takes a little too long to reach what should be the midpoint of the story. The idea of a Faustian social media satire where one man asks himself how far he’ll go for clicks should be fairly fast-paced and almost unrelenting (2020’s Spree comes to mind), but THE LAST PODCAST never quite hits the pace one would hope for, though not to an enormous detriment of the final product. The film remains enjoyable and best watched with a crowd, thanks to the humor in Alioto’s script.
THE LAST PODCAST is bolstered largely by the charming lead performance by Eric Tabach – he so effectively portrays the person girlfriend Brie sees: someone who means well and is ultimately a good guy but is also enticed by the amount of fame that can come with a few nasty decisions. Tabach also has a great knack for comedic timing and brings a lot of life to the screen.
