American Sweatshop Review – The Dark Cost of Moderating the Internet

Lili Reinhart stars in American Sweatshop, a thriller about the hidden toll of content moderation.

Three Out of Five – A Darkly Funny, Unsettling Look at the Mental Cost of Moderation

In American Sweatshop, director Uta Briesewitz (Westworld, Orange Is the New Black) taps into a corner of modern life that feels both invisible and disturbingly familiar: the hidden world of content moderators. Written by Matthew Nemeth and distributed by Brainstorm Media, the film uses the familiar trappings of workplace comedies and thrillers but twists them into something darker, funnier, and far more unsettling.

Lili Reinhart Anchors the Chaos

Lili Reinhart (Riverdale) leads as Daisy, a young woman whose job is to sift through the worst the internet has to offer—deciding what’s too harmful for public consumption and what might just be performance, kink, or staged chaos. Reinhart’s performance grounds the film with a sense of exhaustion, curiosity, and sharp unease. When Daisy stumbles upon a video that feels too real, it sparks a slow-burn mystery that pulls her—and the audience—into murky territory where truth, lies, and spectacle blur.

An “Anti–Office Space” for the Algorithm Age

The ensemble cast brings bite and levity to the bleak premise. Jeremy Ang Jones plays Paul, the shaky newcomer who may not be cut out for the work. Daniela Melchior (The Suicide Squad) shines as Daisy’s friend Ava, while Tim Plester takes on the role of in-house counselor, tasked with keeping employees sane as they endure a relentless stream of human cruelty. Joel Fry provides the pressure-release valve as the voice who says out loud what everyone else is suppressing.

This mix of characters transforms the office setting into what could be called an “anti–Office Space”—not a satire of TPS reports and cubicles, but of the psychic grind of filtering humanity’s darkest impulses for pay. The humor comes unexpectedly, often undercutting the horror in ways that make the reality even harder to shake.

Horror at Arm’s Length

What makes American Sweatshop resonate is its refusal to fully commit to the “hero’s journey.” Daisy isn’t a savior figure; she’s a young woman caught in a system that doesn’t care about her well-being. While the mystery surrounding the “real” video drives the plot, the real terror is in the repetition—the endless scroll of violence, cruelty, and absurdity that feels both fictional and uncomfortably familiar.

Briesewitz doesn’t shy away from drawing parallels to our own compulsive media habits. The film points to how platforms recycle harmful content, how entitlement feeds virality, and how even the act of watching becomes complicit. In one of its strongest layers, American Sweatshop is less about the monster in the video than about what it does to those who stare at it day after day.

Final Thoughts

Darkly funny, occasionally frustrating, and undeniably relevant, American Sweatshop hits harder the more you think about what’s on your feed. It’s not perfect—the narrative sometimes stalls, and the “curious young woman digging too deep” trope is showing its age—but it’s held together by its sharp cast and its ability to make viewers laugh while shuddering.

We’re giving it 3 out of 5 stars. Reinhart proves she’s more than ready for darker, stranger material, and Briesewitz finds humor in horror that’s as digital as it is human. Most importantly, it’s a film that pushes the conversation about mental health, media, and morality into places it deserves to go.

American Sweatshop will be released via Brainstorm Media.

In Select Theaters on August 29, 2025.

Directed by: Uta Briesewitz

Written by: Matthew Nemeth

Produced by: Anita Elsani, Uta Briesewitz, Jason Sosnoff, Barry Levinson, Tom Fontana

Cast: Lili Reinhart, Daniela Melchior, Jeremy Ang Jones, Josh Whitehouse, Tim Plester, Christiane Paul, Joel Fry