Director and writer Pirie Martin has created a black and white nightmare that was one of the more unique films I’ve seen lately. Cliff Van Aarle (Derryn Amoroso) is a crime scene cleaner who suffers from auditory hallucinations. That’s exactly what you want wrong with you when you’re mopping up a headless body, right?

Cliff needs more money to take care of his comatose sister’s medical bills, so he goes deeper into the case, which deals with a dealer named Joubini (James McClusky-Garcia) and his new bath of hallucinogenic drugs. Did Cliff get dosed? Or are there really zombies everywhere now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGahE7ziWTA

There’s also a vigilante named LoneWolf and the idea that maybe both Cliff and his sister were experimented on by their father. Martin has created the kind of world that needs more exploration than just one movie and I was enthralled by the time I spent within the world that he created.

It’s a film noir mixed with horror and even some comic book elements, but all of it works. This feels like the kind of movie that when the eventual sequel comes out and is a big deal, you can tell people that you were there from the beginning.

Psychosis is part of the Popcorn Frights Film Festival. You can get a virtual pass to watch the festival from August 10 to 20. To learn more, visit the official site. To keep track of what movies I’ve watched from this Popcorn Frights, check out this Letterboxd list.