Inside Stathamism: The New Film Exploring a Reddit Cult That Idolized Jason Statham

In the vast digital sprawl of Reddit, strange subcultures are not unusual—but few are as bizarre and dangerous as the cult that emerged around the 2006 action film Crank. Known as Stathamism, this now-defunct online community centered around the belief that mimicking Jason Statham's character, Chev Chelios, was a path to true spiritual awakening.
The subreddit r/stathamism was launched in 2019 by a user under the handle u/sohobreadsticks, also known as 'Opal.' What began as an apparent parody quickly spiraled into something more serious. Adherents of the group believed that the modern world was a simulation—one that could only be disrupted or escaped by maintaining constant adrenaline, just as Chelios does in Crank. Members claimed that if your heart rate dropped, so did your consciousness.
Initially filled with memes and movie quotes, the subreddit rapidly evolved into a repository of increasingly risky behavior. Users posted videos of themselves engaging in high-stakes stunts, from street fights to reckless driving and rooftop jumps. One user uploaded footage of a self-inflicted electrocution. Another discussed using medical defibrillators for 'ritual clarity.'
While Reddit eventually banned the community in 2023, traces of it persist. Reports linked the group to multiple hospitalizations and at least one fatality that remains under investigation. The term 'performance suicide' began appearing in user-generated posts and eventually in law enforcement briefings. Despite Reddit's efforts to scrub the content, remnants of the group's activity linger through screenshots, reuploads, and whispers of a surviving Discord server.
Now, Boston-based filmmakers Caden Ahmad and Aryan Chaudhari are bringing this story to the screen. Their upcoming film, Stathamism, is currently in production and has already begun attracting attention from internet communities that remember the subreddit's eerie rise and fall.
'I thought it was just another weird Reddit joke,' says Ahmad. 'But then I found this PDF floating around called The Crank Testament. That was when I realized people had taken this way too far.'
The film combines real archival Reddit content with dramatizations, capturing the surreal energy and unfiltered chaos that defined early 2010s internet horror. But it is not just a shock piece. It is a darkly comedic examination of how irony and fandom can spiral into dangerous ideology.
'We're interested in what happens when satire stops being interpreted as satire,' says Chaudhari. 'This film explores how easily performance becomes belief, and belief becomes extremism.'
Stathamism aims to critique the broader cultural obsession with true crime and cult narratives, particularly in the United States. With streaming platforms increasingly leaning into sensationalist documentaries, the filmmakers argue that society has blurred the line between entertainment and danger.
'There's a market for chaos,' Ahmad notes. 'And when it becomes a spectacle, it stops being questioned.'
Though the subreddit is long gone, online echoes remain. Slowed-down versions of the Crank soundtrack have surfaced on TikTok. A YouTube video tagged with #ChevAscension re-emerged recently. And on obscure forums, users claim to be part of a continuing movement—one they say Reddit could not kill.
Whether or not Stathamism was a genuine belief system, a viral parody, or a tragic blend of both, the film seeks to hold a mirror up to the internet age's most absurd and dangerous tendencies.
At its core, Stathamism is not just a film about a cult. It is a reflection on the digital landscapes we inhabit, and how belief can grow unchecked in the strangest of places.
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