Happy September! If you know me, you know I’m a year-round horror hound, but it’s that time of year where I double up on the horror movie challenges, build a fortress inside my mountain of blankets, and struggle to find symbiosis between my soul’s need to hibernate and my dog’s need to go outside to pee.
It’s from within my blanket fortress that I gather things that make me feel at ease and in control of the sheer chaos of life – soft ASMR whispers, banana pudding, the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, movies where you’re playing a video game with your friends and your friends die in the video game but then they start dying the same way in real life, too… Special thanks to Michelle Iannantuono for that last one!
Who Is Michelle Iannantuono?
If you asked Michelle Iannantuono what she is up to at this very moment, she may say she’s “politely asking Cthulhu to eat her chaos,” but it’s just as likely she’s whipping up a batch of whatever secret brew allows her to grow six extra arms to manage everything she does as top Oc’ at Octopunk Media.
Beyond a shared fondness for eldritch abominations, I figured it was about time I featured an indie horror filmmaker from my home state, so Charleston-based Michelle Iannantuono seemed like the perfect choice! Not to mention, she’s the mastermind behind two of the most technically-impressive screenlife horror films I’ve seen: Livescream (2018) and Livescreamers (2024).
What Is Octopunk Media?
Sometimes when you’re feeling overwhelmed by the sheer “-ness” of it all, it would be nice to have an octopus in your brain, sorting out the scattered pieces of your mind, and another one straddling your waist, feeding you spaghetti with one tentacle, doing dishes with another, with one wiping the sweat from your brow while you type out an article about the brilliantly multi-talented creator of Livescream…
But in lieu of a real mollusk pal, let’s all strap into Octopunk Media, allowing it to feed us techno-horror delights with one digital tentacle, while the other seven dole out Michelle Iannantuano’s various creative insanities by way of screenwriting, directing, producing, editing, novel writing, video game development, making content, being an industrial chemist, and managing a streaming service. (Wait! Is that a NINE-tentacled octopi??).
With Octopunk Media, Michelle Iannantuano and her collaborators fuse horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and gaming into technically-impressive feature films like the Livescream series, the Reed900 fan-made film series (which takes place in the universe of the Detroit: Become Human video game), or comedy shorts like Seven Deadly Synths (2019) and Fame Fatale (2021).
Octopunk’s streaming platform is called Octopunx TV, and has exclusives like Ships & Giggles (an improv show), Breakout Rolls (a tabletop RPG series), and Eight of Tentacles (interviews + tarot card readings = awesome!).
Informed by her background in content creation, not only did Michelle Iannantuono bring together a group of dynamic and passionate artists and gamers to form a digital punk collective but, in doing so, she modeled how collaboration can foster the positive sense of community that’s so necessary in this digital age – a time in which queer art in particular faces increased scrutiny.
It’s this devotion to community building that first drew me to want to include Michelle Iannantuono in my creator-focused Izzy’s Eerie Indies column, and I’ve discovered that this quality manifests in her stories, too.
Livescream (2018) & Livescreamers (2024)
Both Livescream (2018) and Livescreamers (2024) center characters whose communities help them face their fears in very literal ways.
They’re also both historic in the found footage community: Livescream realized the capabilities of the on-screen chat to layer scenes with complex character and plot dynamics to literally bring the screen to life.
Livescream follows a Let’s Play streamer who plays through a cursed indie horror game, Livescream, and starts to realize that the game is too close to real life for comfort. As on-screen deaths mirror in-game losses, our hero starts to uncover the game’s sinister secrets and eventually must rely on the small community he’s built online to help him through this terror.
When I first saw Livescream, I was excited by the novelty of the livestream element accompanied by a truly engaged and relevant chat. But I was completely blown away to discover that Michelle Iannantuono herself is responsible for designing the levels in both the original Livescream game as well as the one found in Livescreamers, using an open source game engine called Unreal Engine.
If Livescream is the story of The Little Streamer That Could, Livescreamers is a story about the power of teamwork and the horrors of seeing your friend explode right in front of you.
Livescreamers builds on the atmosphere of tension and dread from the first film and amplifies the violence and chaos. This time, we follow the story of a content creator community testing a haunted multiplayer game called House of Souls. Virtual and real worlds collide in bloody fashion as the game once again starts doing its dirty work. As good as Livescream is, Livescreamers is even more brilliant and has a cast that’s fully committed to the plot with natural chemistry to spare.
Beyond the technical achievement of the video game design, both Livescream and Livescreamers show fine attention to craft and detail, particularly in terms of score, sound design, and marrying the smallest of screenlife elements – like an off-the-cuff or sarcastic comment in the stream chat – to the resonance of the story itself.
What’s Next for Indie Horror Creator Michelle Iannantuono?
Even with eight (nine?!) arms fully engaged on a variety of creative projects, Michelle Iannantuono must have figured out how to sprout even more new tentacles, because she’s always finding new outlets for her imagination. Recently, she appeared on the FoundTV series Found Footage Finds and always has something new coming out on Octopunx TV and the Octopunk Media YouTube channel.
Every indie creation has a little bit of genius being born out of necessity, and Michelle Iannantuono has synthesized her interests into a wild world of science, technology, fantasy, and horror. And as cerebral as her ideas may be, Iannantuono’s stories are always grounded in matters of human connection… made all-the-more complicated by evil spirits and the terrors/triumphs and struggles/joys inherent in living the screenlife.
I’ll continue to say, as always, that if you want to find true innovation in film, check out independent filmmaking, and especially check out indie horror. You might think your imagination is the limit, but Michelle Iannantuono shows us that’s BS – just grow a new set of tentacles, swim out there, and make the thing.
For today, as a baby step, let’s gather the things that make us feel at ease and in control of the sheer chaos of life… and politely ask Cthulhu to “eat it!” Thanks for being an inspiration to the horror community, Michelle Iannantuono!
***This article was written by Isaiah Swanson***
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Where to Watch Livescreamer (2018)
Where to Watch Livescreamers (2024)
Photos for this article are screenshots from the trailers, purchased, or (in the case of her headshot) graciously provided by Michelle Iananntuono herself! The featured image is a collage of the Michelle’s headshot and her posters/logos that I put over a stock photo of octopus tentacles that I tinted purple because I noticed that color seemed to be a favorite of hers.
