ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel, The Good, the Bad and the Verdict and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.

Official synopsis: Reed’s monotonous days lead to a meltdown at his dead-end job. He bails and heads to his parents’ place in Arizona, spending his days floating in the pool while his parents persuade him to get back on track. Reed comes up with a wild plan instead. He hires an escort, Tess, to take care of him for a week. Debauchery and buffoonery ensue as Tess joins Reed on his journey to nowhere fast.

Darkly comic character studies of socially awkward characters exhibiting troubling psychological issues are becoming a subgenre unto themselves lately. Director Oliver Bernsen’s Bagworm looked like it might be the most uncomfortable of that type of film to premiere this spring, but writer/director/star Nick Funess’s The Hedonist says “Hold my drugs from my parents’ medicine cabinet.”

You know you are in for a wild ride when a film’s opening scenes include a close-up of STD warts being frozen off of a man’s genitals. Hang on tightly because Funess, who portrays the decidedly strange Reed, has much more in store, including some of the deliberately least erotic sex scenes you’re likely to see in a 2026 film. 

Just before his rich, enabling parents (Richard Funess as Dad and Marijane Funess as Mom) go on a vacation, Reed introduces them to Tess (Izzi Rojas), who he says is his new girlfriend but is really a sex worker who he has hired to “take care of” him for the week. The foursome’s initial dinner meeting is enough to put viewers ill at ease, but a later dinner scene with Reed, Tess, and two other people makes the initial one look somewhat close to normal. There’s also a third act scene that quickly takes the film into unexpected places.

Nick Funess won the Best Director award at MidWest WeirdFest for The Hedonist. His commitment to seeing his vision through is all there on the screen. The performances are sometimes nearly emotionless but that conveys the miasma of being and near-nothingness through which these major characters trudge. Nick Funess and Rojas give strong performances as they head up a good ensemble cast. 

The Hedonist characters try fleeting attempts at happiness and go through long bouts of joylessness, and there is plenty of merely going through the motions. For viewers, jaw dropping oddness and head scratching enigmas are on full display. You may wonder what you got yourself into but you won’t be able to look away.

The Hedonist screened at the 10th annual MidWest WeirdFest, which took place March 5–8, 2026 at the Micon Downtown Cinema in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.