Infinite Scroll To Hell
Filmmaker Daniel Goldhaber curates a cyber horror film series alongside two of his own films.
This June, Roxy Cinema welcomes filmmaker Daniel Goldhaber, who released his latest film, Faces of Death, this year. He’s curated a special cyber horror film series alongside two of his works, Cam (2018) and Faces of Death (2026), both presented in 35mm. Roxy Cinema also sat down with the filmmaker ahead of the series to get his thoughts on technology-based horror, keeping pace with culture, and the connection between his chosen films.
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What was the central idea behind programming this cyber horror series, and what connections do you see between these films?
Cinematically representing the internet is a challenge that offers endless opportunities to re-invent the cinematic form. I wanted to program a handful of movies inspired my own approach to representing digital life, but that also showcased the ways this language has evolved over the last 15 years.
You selected Unfriended, Spree, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and your own films Cam and Faces of Death. What does each film contribute to the conversation about technology and fear?
For me, all of these movies are about the ways that the internet and digital technology fundamentally isolate us. The more that we move our lives online, the less we exist in physical space with one another. Over the course of these movies, one can see the ways that, as digital technology and social media are more widely accepted, they become an inherent part of how we view ourselves and how we relate to the world around us. What may feel novel or esoteric in 2011 feels widely accepted and embraced today.
How has cyber horror evolved alongside the internet itself? Are today’s anxieties fundamentally different from the ones filmmakers were exploring a decade ago?
The core of the evolution has been that the dangers of the digital world were initially abstract –– now they are real. What was once conceptualized by the supernatural demons of CAM and Unfriended has become the grounded terrors of Spree and Faces of Death. We have willfully allowed our social reality to become disrupted, privatized, and manipulated. We are reaping the all-too real consequences of that decision.
Many of these films deal with identity, performance, and surveillance. Why do those themes feel so central to digital life?
As long as there have been cameras, we have changed our social performance to accommodate them. Now, the cameras are everywhere. Digital technology has allowed for the mass proliferation of surveillance at cheap cost. As a result, we have willingly entered into a social panopticon in which we are encouraged to perpetually surveil our experiences. We know we are perpetually being watched, and we behave entirely different as a result. We are perpetually filming ourselves, looking at ourselves. So of course we imagine our identities differently.
Looking back on Cam, what aspects of the film feel even more relevant now than when it was released?
CAM, when it was conceived, was mostly talking about a feeling of depersonalization and the disruption of identity on the internet. But on a practical level, the events that take place have only become more plausible. We developed the film before deep fakes had been announced (this happened during our post-production process). Since the film, there has not only been an explosion of digital fakery that has totally undermined our ability to believe what we see online, there has also been a wide proliferation of the monetization of digital social engagement (from Twitch to OnlyFans). As a result, more of our means of engaging with one another has become capitalized, but also, our ability to trust the person performing for cash on the other side of the camera has continued to erode. We live in an era of inherent psychosis.
The original Faces of Death became infamous because audiences weren’t always sure what was real. Today we live in a world of deepfakes, viral misinformation, and endless online content. Did that reality influence your approach to the film?
Absolutely. In a sense that was the core of the movie. There was a point in time in which audiences inherently trusted the images they were consuming. Now, it is the opposite.
What makes technology-based horror effective? Why do stories about screens, platforms, and online spaces continue to resonate with audiences?
Screens are little cinema boxes. What was once the domain of the theatrical experience has become portable and a part of our daily conversation. Meme culture is, in a way, communicating with bite-sized linguistic pieces of cinema.
Do you think filmmakers are keeping pace with how quickly internet culture changes, or is cinema often playing catch-up?
Mainstream theatrical cinema is 100% playing catch-up. The industry moves far too slow to keep pace with the evolution of media, culture, and technology online. An example of this is that we initially developed the concept of Faces of Death in 2019. Not dissimilar from how CAM was speaking to an emotional reality that later became a manifested one, Faces of Death was responding to the ways in which the recommendation algorithm seemed primed to propagate real-world violence. But even in the time between when the movie was finished (2024) and when it was released (2026), the nature of disinformation online had completely changed –– shifting from genuine portrayals of violence to artificial recreations of it. While the movie functions as a fascinating period piece in the contemporary eco-system, it was unfortunately also completely out of date.
What current technology or online behavior do you think is ripe for exploration in the next generation of cyber horror films?
I am very interested in the way that AI-generated imagery is going to completely change our social relationship to the moving image. Not sure where this goes yet.
Which filmmakers have most influenced your approach to technology-focused storytelling?
David Fincher. David Cronenberg. Eugene Kotlyarenko. Steven Soderbergh. Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Has the internet become a more effective source of horror than supernatural monsters because it’s something we interact with every day?
No. I think quite the opposite. The monsters of the internet are now real.
Films in the series include:
Film still from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Film still from Spree
Film still from Unfriended
Film still from Cam
Film still from Faces of Death
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