Film Fests
Unnamed Footage Festival Vol. 8 Has an INCREDIBLE Lineup!
I’ve heard of the Unnamed Footage Festival for quite some time but hadn’t had the opportunity to be a part of it…until now. When I requested press accreditation for this festival, I had no clue what films would be screening, but I didn’t care. If you know me, you know how much I love found footage. Let’s just say the lineup for this festival is BONKERS. Among other prestigious partners for UFF this year, they happily welcome new partner FoundTV. If you’re unfamiliar with FoundTV, it’s a found footage streaming service that is giving the big horror streamers a run for their money. The Found Footage Horror and In-World-Camera Film Festival returns to San Francisco March 25-30, 2025, and offers a hybrid festival experience like no other. There will be a ton of events for in-person attendees to sink their teeth into, and I’m jealous of everyone who gets to be a part of that. But what films will they be showing?! Let’s take a look! Check Out the Killer Lineup at Unnamed Footage Festival 2025!
I’ve heard of the Unnamed Footage Festival for quite some time but hadn’t had the opportunity to be a part of it…until now. When I requested press accreditation for this festival, I had no clue what films would be screening, but I didn’t care. If you know me, you know how much I love found footage.
Let’s just say the lineup for this festival is BONKERS.
Among other prestigious partners for UFF this year, they happily welcome new partner FoundTV. If you’re unfamiliar with FoundTV, it’s a found footage streaming service that is giving the big horror streamers a run for their money. The Found Footage Horror and In-World-Camera Film Festival returns to San Francisco March 25-30, 2025, and offers a hybrid festival experience like no other.
There will be a ton of events for in-person attendees to sink their teeth into, and I’m jealous of everyone who gets to be a part of that. But what films will they be showing?! Let’s take a look!
Tickets can be purchased HERE.
Check Out the Killer Lineup at Unnamed Footage Festival 2025
Image courtesy of Unnamed Footage Festival
TINSMAN ROAD (2025, dir. Robbie Banfitch) (WORLD PREMIERE)
A young man searches for the body of his sister years after her tragic disappearance.
Shot fully on gritty 4:3 Mini-DV, Robbie Banfitch’s sophomore feature Tinsman Road takes us on an emotionally winding voyage into the wilderness of death and sorrow.
Image courtesy of Unnamed Footage Festival
I DON’T LIKE IT HERE (2025, dir. Robbie Smith)
A recently paroled outsider returns to his desolate hometown, only to find a community plagued by a disturbing darkness. As he grapples with his own past and the town’s sinister secrets, he becomes the prime suspect in a series of gruesome murders.
After his powerful directorial debut, Grieve, Robbie Smith returns with I Don’t Like it Here, a poignant hybrid found-footage film that builds on the eerie, voyeuristic camera work of Grieve and combines it segments of faux-documentary footage in order to create something deeply haunting and highly original. I Don’t Like it Here follows a parolee who returns to his childhood home to find his family missing.
WHAT HAPPENED TO DOROTHY BELL? (2024, dir. Danny Villanueva)
After uncovering disturbing revelations from her early childhood involving her late grandmother, Dorothy Bell, Ozzie Gray sets out to video document her investigation into these past events. Desperate for answers, she attempts to communicate with Dorothy’s spirit but unwittingly awakens something malevolent.
Featuring a star studded cast including Lisa Wilcox (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 & 5) and Michael Hargrove (Candyman (2021), The Express (2008)) and a breakthrough lead performance from newcomer Asya Meadows, Dorothy Bell is found-footage gem, with intense scares and unexpected twists as it examines generational trauma through the lens of demonic possession.
Image courtesy of Unnamed Footage Festival
SOLVENT (2024, dir. Johannes Grenzfurthner)
While searching for Nazi documents in an Austrian farmhouse, a team of experts uncovers a hidden secret buried in its bowels. American expatriate Gunner S. Holbrook becomes obsessed with solving the mystery, and as his sanity wanes, he must confront an insatiable evil.
After screening Masking Threshold at UFF 6 and its divisive follow up Razzenest at UFF 7, we’re proud to share Solvent, the final film in Johannes Grenzfurthner’s loose trilogy of unconventional horror films. While Solvent is, perhaps, the most conventional of the three films, it retains Grenzfurthner’s signature touch of absolute insanity.
LEECH (2024, dir. David Dawson)
The trials, tribulations, and trolls of a Youtuber who calls himself The Dark Lord of Loves Park.
The Dark Lord of Loves Park live streams regularly in hopes of receiving donations from his viewers who are only watching to see him self-destruct. Inspired by King Cobra JFS, David Dawson (Flesh Games, The Long Weekend) returns with a mumblegore, screenlife film that explores the internet phenomenon of LOLCOWS.
It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This (2023, USA, dir. Rachel Kempf, Nick Toti)
When a married couple (filmmakers Rachel Kempf, Nick Toti as themselves) purchase a rundown duplex in rural Missouri to be the set of their next horror film, they are delighted by the layers of graffiti and debris. Nick’s production of a documentary about their project and the entertaining dynamic between himself, Rachel, and her longtime bestie Christian gets sidetracked when strangers begin standing completely still outside their new home, silently staring at the house.
Hunting Matthew Nichols (2024, Canada, dir. Markian Tarasiuk)
Two decades after her brother’s disappearance, documentarian Tara Nichols (Miranda MacDougall) sets out to find answers. When she uncovers a disturbing piece of evidence: a horrific tape that the police covered up, she learns that there’s more to his disappearance than she’s been told, and that her brother could still be alive.
Dream Eater (2024, Canada, dir. Alex Lee Williams, Jay Drakulic, Mallory Drumm)
During a holiday at a remote cabin in the mountains, filmmaker Mallory Drumm decides to capture her boyfriend’s (Alex Lee Williams) strange parasomnia on camera. Despite their efforts, his episodes worsen, becoming violent and dangerous. As the couple seek a cure, they begin to expect that something more sinister is at play and begin to wonder if Alex’s malady is supernatural in origin.
Image courtesy of Unnamed Footage Festival
The Lost Episode (2024, Canada, dir. Nick Wernham)
The Lost Episode follows police officers Paul Massaro and Terrence Williams (Anthony Grant and Benjamin Sutherland) as they patrol the town of Franklin on Halloween night. As the night progresses, the officers respond to a series of increasingly disturbing calls and begin to suspect a diabolical conspiracy lurking in the heart of their small town.
Nightfall: A Paranormal Investigation (2024, Australia, dir. Myles McEwen, Ripley Stevens)
Two young paranormal detectives investigate a haunting. One wields a video camera and can record the spirits of the dead while the other brandishes headphones and a microphone that can capture their voices. Together they delve into a haunting that pushes their skills to the limit. This simple setup serves as a springboard for some of the best cinematography and sound design found footage horror has to offer.
The Rebrand (2024, Canada, dir. Kaye Adelaide)
Nicole, a pregnant videographer takes a gig helping a pair of lesbian lifestyle influencers who’ve seen their brand and their reputation destroyed after being cancelled for an unknown transgression. As she films their lives, she finds that the pair have far more quirks in person than their online personas reveal.
McCurdy Point (2025, USA, dir. Jeremy Brothers, Nick Paonessa)
McCurdy Point follows five friends who travel to an old cabin in the woods to celebrate, but instead find themselves targeted by a malicious force that defies explanation. Starring an ensemble cast of improv comedians, instead of scoring laughs, they build intense tension and massive scares as the force picks them off one-by-one.
Image courtesy of Unnamed Footage Festival
DOOBA DOOBA (2024, USA, dir. Ehrland Hollingsworth)
When aspiring singer Amna (Amna Vegha) is hired to babysit, she’s surprised to learn her ward is the 16-year-old Monroe (Betsy Sligh), a troubled shut-in who hasn’t left her home since watching her brother murdered. What ensues is a cat-and-mouse game with the tension of Creep and an absurdist sensibility of Too Many Cooks.
The Unsolved Love Hotel Murder Case Incident (2024, Japan, dir. Dave Jackson, Guy)
Dave Jackson and Guy, a pair of horror filmmakers and Australian expats living in Japan, decide to investigate their friend’s story of a murder and haunting at an abandoned love hotel. What starts off as a fun weekend trip becomes a nightmare when their friend vanishes and the love hotel turns out to actually be haunted.
Japandemonium (日本-悪魔) (2024, Japan, dir Sean Kurosawa / Kyosuke Koizumi, Nozomi Tomaki)
A double feature of Sean Kurosawa’s Girls Just Wanna Have Kill and Kyosuke Koizumi & Nozomi Tomaki’s Killmageddon, this midnight block is like seppuku for your senses. With minimal plot and maximal violence, Killmageddon is a blood-drenched fever dream. Girls Just Wanna Have Kill keeps up the insanity from its opening dedication to Cyndi Lauper to its splatter-pop idol heroine Momoko (Tenma Aida) and her gooey time-traveling hijinks.
What I Remember (2025, USA, dir. Alex Hera)
Based on Hera’s short film of the same title, What I Remember follows Ryan and Sam, a pair bound together by loneliness and by their deep desire to escape the bigotry and isolation of their rural hometown. Jumping between past and present, we watch Ryan and Sam’s relationship tenderly grow, all-the-while knowing that in the present Ryan has gone missing, may be dead, and that Sam is dead-set on finding the truth.
Distort (2025, Ireland, dir. Richard Waters)
A musician recording an album in the woods finds mysterious cassette tapes being left for him. On them, a woman researching an urban legend is being terrorised by a man and his vicious dog. A mix between Justin Benson / Aaron Moorhead’s Resolution and Turner Clay’s The Blackwell Ghost, Distort is a beautiful and welcomed return to the woods.
Image courtesy of Unnamed Footage Festival
Baleful (2024, Canada, dir. Denman Hatch)
Eddie has a serious problem. He doesn’t know what’s real. He doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t know why he wakes up covered in blood. Baleful is a hybrid anthology film that brings the Unnamed Footage Festival 8 theme—“Video Never Lies”—to chilling fruition. As reality unravels for a small community, its members turn to their cameras for the truth… only to discover that some images can’t be unseen. From the creator of Canada’s #1 horror YouTube channel, Deformed Lunchbox, Baleful also marks the long-awaited return of Kenny vs Spenny’s Spencer Rice to the big screen.
Fat Tuesday (2018, USA, dir. Jorge Torres-Torres)
Cinema-in-Public is a term we’ve come up with to refer to narrative films shot guerilla-style in public places. The actors know they’re making a movie, but the public is none-the wiser. Examples are rare, and include oddities like Randy Moore’s Disney World-filmed Escaped from Tomorrow and Jason Banker’s Toad Road.
UFF is proud to present its first Cinema-In-Public screening, Fat Tuesday. Filmed in New Orleans on-location during Mardi Gras, a group of friends is preyed upon by a mysterious killer (Hannah Gross). Shot and edited by the criminally overlooked Jorge Torres-Torres (Toad Road, Sisters of the Plague) Fat Tuesday transcends traditional slashers by adding an element of verisimilitude previously unknown to the subgenre.
Reality Killers (2005, Italy, dir. Alessandro Capone, Pablo Dammicco, Volfango De Biasi, Francesco Maria Dominedò)
Reality Killers is a horror film in which a man obsessed with violent ‘snuff’ videos, featuring people being abused, tortured and killed, goes on to commit his own similar crimes. – Banned in the UK and lost for 20 years, Reality Killers is a surprisingly cinematic 90s style In-World-Camera film, which will find its theatrical debut as our Saturday, midnight screening.
I don’t know about you, but this sounds like it will be a BLAST! Keep an eye out for our reviews, and if you plan on attending, you can purchase tickets HERE.
Author’s Note: When this article was initially published, I had stated Weekend at the End of the World used AI. After an email from the film’s publicist and producer, I am updating that portion as we have been told they did not use AI in the creation of this film. Horror Press takes a hardline stance against the use of AI, generative or otherwise, and we will remain diligent on calling out its potential use and update where needed. We thank the crew behind this project for taking the time and clarifying how certain effects were created. It’s never our intention to punch down, but we owe it to our readers to be transparent and call out AI when we think we see it. However, this was not the case, and no AI was used in Weekend at the End of the World.
There is nothing wrong with a film festival that takes chances on films. Programming festivals seem like an incredibly tedious job that will always leave people underwhelmed, no matter how great the programming is. There are two films I screened at Another Hole In The Head that left me wanting more and questioning their inclusion within the festival. I’m sure these films worked for whoever picked them, but for me, they fell completely flat. And one of them was my most anticipated film from the festival.
Kombucha Review
Luke (Terrence Carey) is a down-on-his-luck musician who is stuck on the edge of recognition and nothing. His partner, Elyse (Paige Bourne), begs him to get a “real job” after his ex-band member, Andy (Jesse Kendall), mysteriously resurfaces with a too-good-to-be-true job offer. After taking this new job, Luke finds himself happy with the influx of money, but void of personal growth. His new boss, Kelsey (Claire McFadden), forces Luke to drink their company’s trademark kombucha, or else he’s out of a job. It turns out this mystery drink may just turn Luke into a shell of a man. Literally.
Kombucha was my most anticipated film screening at Another Hole In The Head. I was stimulated by the film’s description, which was described as Office Space meets Cronenberg. From that descriptor, I was expecting some pretty out-there comedic moments mixed with gnarly grossout scenes. Kombucha failed on both of those aspects. The film’s handful of jokes were fart and poop jokes that felt beyond out of place. (And this is coming from someone who loves fart and poop jokes.) On top of that, the film’s “Cronenberg” moments were few and far between.
Flat Visual Style Undercuts Kombucha’s Strong Concept
Co-writers Geoff Bakken and Jake Myers, and directed by Jake Myers, have an excellent concept on their hands. Even the film’s commentary hits perfectly. But the film’s bland writing takes the oompf out of the overall effect. I wanted much more from this film, visually. Matt Brown’s cinematography isn’t bad…it’s competent enough. At its core, this film just feels very by-the-college-textbook; dead-center framing with After-Effects-like handheld plugins make this film feel flat beyond belief. Some of the practical effects look good; unfortunately, I was checked out by that point.
Weekend at the End of the World Review
Karl (Clay Elliott) is reeling from his ex-girlfriend’s proposal denial. His best friend, Miles (Cameron Fife), decides to take him to his deceased grandmother’s cabin for a best friends’ weekend. Once at the cabin, Karl and Miles find themselves in a world of trouble when they open a portal to another dimension. These two friends, along with their nosy neighbor, Hank (Thomas Lennon), must travel through strange worlds in order to save their own.
Thomas Lennon is Weekend at the End of the World’s Biggest Missed Opportunity
One of my favorite things about actors like Michael Madsen (RIP) and Thomas Lennon is how they use/used their fame and time to bring independent horror films into the limelight. While that trajectory made a bit more sense for Madsen’s career, it has been a delight to see Lennon pop up here and there throughout the past decade in horror. Most horror fans delight in seeing a big-name actor take the time and star in a film that helps bring credence to a genre that was once looked upon with disgrace.
One of the two great things about Weekend at the End of the World was Thomas Lennon…and then they silenced him. Co-writers Clay Elliott, Gille Klabin, and Spencer McCurnin filled a script with teen-brained fart jokes in a way that feels lazy and cheap. Thomas Lennon’s ill-written character, who is nothing more than a punching bag for two characters who lack a single ounce of comedy or character, is (figuratively) castrated shortly into the film, and any sense of self the film had is then gone. While his character was flat, Lennon brought a sense of something to this empty film.
MeeMaw’s Practical Effects Are a Highlight
The film’s other standout moment is the practical effects used on MeeMaw. So much has been done in horror, and creating a new viscerally icky character is hard to do. MeeMaw’s character (creature?) design is delightfully awful to look at. She could have easily become the film’s star and propelled this film to be something if it had been more interesting. But this film’s story is bland and recycled from other stories.
I have so little to say about this film because it exists as an hour and a half of attempted flash, with little to nothing to add to the genre. The story is bland, the characters are flat, and the jokes will make a teenager laugh (before they inevitably go back to scrolling on TikTok). Full of D-grade visual effects that aren’t even fit for the year 2015, Weekend at the End of the World is an overall forgettable experience; it’s an apocalypse of entertainment…an exercise in futility. Not even Thomas Lennon or MeeMaw’s well-thought-out (and achieved) character design could save us from this…experience.
When you watch films for a living, you sometimes feel like you’ve seen it all. It’s hard to be surprised by films when you’ve seen everything from Salo to Inside to Slaughtered Vomit Dolls. For those looking for the next “big thing” in horror, the festival circuit is the best place to look. When I pressed play on Hoagie, I had no clue I was about to watch my favorite film of the year.
A Gooey Goblin and an Everyman Hero
An average family man, Brendan Bean (Ryan Morley), is left home alone while his family heads out for the weekend. While home alone, Brendan finds himself in the company of a homunculus zygote named Hoagie. Hoagie is a devilishly cute little goblin man that sprang to life from an alien egg and is about to give Brendan much more than he bargained for. When a right-wing militia attempts to get Hoagie back, Brendan and Hoagie find themselves in a fight for survival. Can this everyman save his new best friend? Or will these weekend warriors succeed in stealing this goopy goblin?
Hoagie toes the line between low-budget schlock satire and a genuinely great film. From the start, my reaction was nothing more than, “Ah, this film knows what it is.” As the minutes ticked by, I couldn’t help but notice how honestly incredible it was. Co-writers Matt Hewitt and Ryan Morley, under Matt Hewitt’s direction, have an incredibly heartfelt story of love and compassion that is wrapped up in a sinewy bow. I’ve said time and time again that horror comedy doesn’t typically work for me. Hoagie’s schtick never gets old for a singular second. Whether it’s poking fun at right-wing nazis who spend their weekends getting shirtless and “training” together, or literal poop jokes, Hoagie does not fail to deliver laughs and tears.
A Third-Act Bloodbath That Proves Hoagie Goes Hard
Just when you think the film has run out of tricks, you get hit with a third-act tour de force of blood, carnage, and mayhem. I’ve come across many festival films that I think could be used as wonderful teaching tools in film school…Hoagie could be used as a master class. This film demonstrates how filmmakers can effectively stretch a budget. They lean into the lo-fi aesthetic but never use it as a crutch. From the film’s unique and odd acting to its purposefully quirky, stilted dialogue, Hoagie is a film that does not fail to entertain all of the senses.
Hoagie Is One of the Best Indie Horror Films of the Year
I could go on, waxing poetic to hit a word count or get a pull quote. But Hoagie taught me that sometimes minimalism is best. It’s important to learn when to say too much and when to say enough. I’m stunned by how impressive a feature Hoagie is. This gooey little goblin gets at your heartstrings and refuses to let go. If you’re a fan of well-done, fully realized practical effects that have substance and style, then Hoagie is the fix you’ll find yourself chasing for years to come. Oh, and there are enough dong shots to make another full frontal ranking list.
If you get the chance to catch Hoagie, I cannot recommend enough that you do so. Humanity is not ready for these forces to be unleashed onto this world. You’ll laugh, you’ll cringe, you’ll squirm, but, most importantly, you’ll feel. Hoagie is more delicious than a fatty patty six-stack (with the beans).
No, Cult Cinema Isn’t Dead
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‘Night Patrol’ Review: Vampiric Cop Horror Undone by Messy Execution
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