Dual Wielder (2026): Directed by Julia Boyd, this reveals why the initials E.E. sit atop every Time Crisis leaderboard in Los Angeles. Those high scores are from Eddie Esguerra, who has mastered the art of holding two light guns simultaneously, dodging virtual bullets, and clearing levels with surgical precision. It’s not just a movie about gaming; it’s a character study of a guy who has found total flow state in the middle of a dying medium. I love how he acts in front of a crowd, almost like a John Woo character, and his goal of hitting three arcades and beating the whole game alone, playing for two. So awesome.

Brian Won’t Wear Condoms (2025): Directed by Genna Edwards, this is about the strained dynamic between two friends: Abby (Jordan Chin), a wellness influencer living in the curated, pseudo-spiritual bubble of online health culture, and Kayla (April Consalo from Cannibal Mukbang!), her decidedly more grounded and skeptical best friend. When the influencer decides to undergo an alternative contraceptive procedure—a concept that sounds suspiciously like something whispered in a dark corner of a wellness retreat—the results are anything but harmonious. As the title suggests, the catalyst for this madness is the titular Brian, a man whose refusal to use basic protection triggers a surreal, visceral downward spiral that tests the limits of their friendship and their physical well-being. This was incredible and hey — it has a HELLBENDER song!

Long’s Long Lost & Mini Mart (2025): Directed by Julian Doan, this is set within the claustrophobic, flickering confines of a Little Saigon mini-mart. Our protagonist is a young man struggling under the crushing weight of a recent loss who turns to a medium who runs the register. She shows him a menu of the ways that she can reanimate his dead father for one final conversation. But when she brings his father back, it’s not all happy. Actually, it’s barely happy as it drags up decades of repressed history, unspoken grievances, and the kind of generational trauma that doesn’t just vanish when you say goodbye. As a convenience store lover, I would totally buy a beef stick and ice tea here.

BlueBeard GasLight (2025): The story follows a woman (played by director Kyla Miller) deep in the trenches of mounting an ambitious, artisanal puppet production of the legend of Bluebeard. While we see that, we get a deep dive into the feminist story of what Bluebeard is all about, as well as the many men who — of course — had no idea what it was trying to say. Really interesting!

Dry January (2025): Directed by C.J. Arellano, this is all about Maya (Akanksha Cruczynski). Looking to escape the haze of her partying lifestyle, she commits to a full month of sobriety. But what do you do with all that free time in a dry January? She finds her calling in sculpting. Her masterpiece? A jagged, menacing crab sculpture that seems to radiate a strange, malevolent energy and gives off fortune cookie like messages about the both of them. Maya feels fulfilled and gets great messages. Toby (Zak Ma), her drinking buddy and brother, not so much. In fact, the crab seems to hate him. He just wants to get back to getting wasted. She just wants to hang out with the crab. Man, this whole movie blew me away and I had no expectations, but I was rocked by it. We all need that crab man. And a drink. Maybe not all that paper eating.

Strip Mall (2025): Directed by Andrew Appelle, this finds Nate (Nate Wilson) — an average, aimless shoplifter looking for a quick score — getting busted. He expects a lecture or maybe a call to the local police. Instead, he encounters a store supervisor (Howard Linscott) who has been waiting for a special case. The punishment the supervisor doles out isn’t jail time. It’s a psychological and physical gauntlet designed to break Nate down to his core. I remember when Hills Department Store used to have a sign up front about how they’d prosecute anyone that stole and even at a young age, I was fearful that someday I would be in such a situation. Also: Those baby changing tables can really hold some weight. I loved this — such a strange piece of film.

The Last Cheap House (2026): Directed by Meg Favreau. In 2021, home-renovation influencers Josh (Jakeem Dante Powell) and Anna (Sami Griffith) Connelly vanished. Their bodies were eventually discovered three years later, tucked away and rotting in the crawlspace beneath their dream home. The film is presented as the final, recovered footage from their cameras. It’s a descent from bubbly content creators to a state of paranoid, trapped exhaustion. As someone who woke up yesterday to ten new doors randomly showing up to be added to this house, I felt like this may have been the most horrific film I’ve watched all year.

I Hate Babies (2026): Directed by Sidney Leeder and Alona Metzer, this has a protagonist who is dealing with a chronic, undiagnosable pain linked to her IUD. Once she finally removes the device, the world around her stops making sense. It turns out the pain was a filter—or perhaps a warning—because once it’s gone, she begins to perceive the terrifying reality of her social circle. Every woman in her life who has embraced motherhood is undergoing a grotesque transformation into a Mombie. Yes, a hive-minded, baby-obsessed group of creatures that view her lack of interest in reproduction as an existential threat. Terrifying.

It’s Hard Not to be Romantic About Time Travel (2025): Directed by Michael Charron, this has two friends — Swann (Taylor Fredricks) and Randall (Ronald Short) — stuck in a cycle of personal stagnation, who decide that the best way to move forward is to literally move backward in the hopes that they can erase the framed-up crime that ruined their lives. Armed with nothing but a significant amount of weed and a theory that love is the key to bending the space-time continuum, they manage to land five years in the past. But this isn’t about grand temporal paradoxes or changing the fate of the world; it’s about the terrifying realization that even if you have the power to go back, you’re still the same broken person you were when you left. PS: I call a time machine when I take edibles on a road trip and sleep until I get there. Also another PS: I love that Somewhere In Time was the inspiration for romantic time travel.

Lady Puritan (2026): Directed by Justin Streichman and Gustine Fudickar, Lady Puritan is a heavy, atmosphere-drenched short that follows a woman who finds herself trapped in a waking nightmare. There, the barrier between her current life and the grim, oppressive world of her Puritan ancestor is thinning. As she becomes increasingly unmoored from reality, she discovers that her family tree is rooted in something far darker than standard history. Gorgeous scenery and wild visuals in this.

Legend Has It (2026): Directed by Thomas Lorber, this has Adam (Jon Cor), a male stripper who is known as The Legend, arrive for a private booking. He’s dressed to get undressed, he’s prepped and he’s ready to work. But when he walks through the wrong door, he finds himself in the middle of a scenario that is definitely not a bachelorette party. There’s already been one mobster killed and it seems like a second is nearly dead. The brilliance here is that the film refuses to let the joke burn out. Adam doesn’t immediately realize he’s in over his head and the film milks that disconnect for every drop of tension it’s worth. Cor is great in this able to do plenty of action and yet handle the humor. Also: Dildo fight.

Violet Vendetta (2025): Directed by Ted Hayden, this is about Luke (Brandon H. Lee) and Hunter (Hector Melgoza), who are two wannabe auteurs who are just trying to get their masterpiece in the can. The problem? Their backer is a shadowy, dangerous executive producer whose idea of notes involves sending a squad of hitmen to their set. What follows is a frantic, blood-soaked descent into DIY action. Instead of calling cut, the boys have to trade their camera rigs for improvised weaponry. You know you know they’re bad guys? They roll up in a Cybertruck. Also, other than Ninja 3, this is the only movie I’ve seen that combines martial arts and golf carts.

Scullion (2026):Samantha (Whitney Garner) and Greg (Cody Parr) discuss how he grew up with a very fixed idea of how to wash the dishes. She tells him to change it up and go against what his mother taught him, which angers a sort of poltergeist (Jim Close) of poor housekeeping. Look, I have OCD too, and this is the kind of thing that happens when you don’t follow the rules.

My Severed Arm (2026): Directed by Casey De Fremery. After a masked killer leaves her trapped and alone, a woman turns to the internet to discover how she can survive the night. Ads during videos have never been more annoying. As someone streaming all day, this killed me. I am dealing with Roku’s incessant ads for Blossom and Cougar Town to the point that I am yelling at them during the day. Anyway, back to the movie. I love how close this looks to a mid-2000s slasher, along with all the humor. Even the killers need to search for help when it comes to cutting off their arms! And love that the slasher killer is like a mix of Madman Marz, Victor Crowley and Humongous with a gas mask!

You can watch this either in-person or virtually at the Chattanooga Film Festival. For more info, visit the official site.

Spanked by a Ghost (2025): Directed by Katelyn Douglass, this follows a lonely protagonist who finds herself living in a house that isn’t just haunted. It’s handsy. But she doesn’t run for the hills. Instead, she becomes obsessed. So what starts off as a standard ghost story becomes an exploration of repressed, supernatural desire. As the entity becomes more aggressive, the film shifts from jump-scare horror to something much stranger. Now, it’s a messy, eroticized fever dream that asks, “What happens when you fall in love with the thing that’s tormenting you?” If The Entity turned you on, good news. Watch this. I mean, the title itself is a spoiler.

Book U Can Ask ???s (2026): Directed by Casimir Nozkowski, this is the story of Mikey (Maura Madden), who is just trying to enjoy getting high. The peace is shattered when they find a ghost in the kitchen—a spectral figure with “bloody teeth”—casually all the KEA dinnerware. Turns out, the spirit is a Victorian-era casualty looking to settle a 150-year-old grudge against the descendants of his murderer. The only snag? A corporation bought the building in the ’80s, and the original bloodline is long gone. Mikey, showing a level of empathy (and lethargy) rarely seen in supernatural cinema, decides to help. Using nothing but an internet search and a bit of modern “know-how,” they turn the search for vengeance into a quest for closure. It’s a weirdly wholesome, occasionally hilarious look at what happens when the past clashes with the digital present. Loved this.

The Border at Tolstoi (2025): Directed by Bob Kotyk, this has a border guard working the night shift at the Tolstoi crossing. It’s a thankless job in the middle of nowhere. Then a mysterious traveler arrives, carrying a device that looks more like a prop from a 1970s Canadian sci-fi serial than any real-world weaponry. When the guard tries to inspect it, the device malfunctions—or perhaps it works exactly as intended—and blasts her with an energy pulse that effectively unmoors her consciousness. From there, the film becomes a disorienting, surreal experience. It’s essentially a body snatcher movie where the only victim is the protagonist herself, struggling to maintain her sanity while her own biology starts to glitch in increasingly gruesome ways.

Breeder (2026): Directed by Sapphire Sandalo, Breeder is a sharp, jagged piece about the weight of expectations and the literal manifestations of internal fears, all centered on a mythological entity that is as terrifying as it is bizarre. The film follows a woman who is currently on the fence about motherhood. It’s a classic, grounded setup. That is what it was, until the folklore starts bleeding into reality. She finds herself stalked within the supposed safety of her own home by a demonic horseman, an entity pulled straight from the dark corners of Filipino myth. Sandalo masterfully keeps the action tight, focusing on the claustrophobia of the home. When the creature finally makes its appearance, it’s not some CGI blur, but a hulking, visceral presence that feels like it’s actually occupying the space with her.

Flame Out (2025): Directed by Emily Grace Goldwyn, Flame Out is a sharp, acidic comedy of manners that feels less like a traditional film and more like a collective panic attack. If you’ve ever had a night spiral out of control because you simply couldn’t say no, this one’s going to hit a little too close to home. I mean, I feel seen. Anyway, Grace is the kind of serial people-pleaser who would apologize to a door that she bumped into. In an attempt to be everything to everyone, she manages to catastrophically double-book her entire evening. The result? A series of misunderstandings that lead to her accidentally buying out an entire Diptyque candle party—spending an absurd amount of money on overpriced wax—while simultaneously nuking a long-term friendship. I’d like this to be full-length, but it would give me so much trauma.

Hairy Times Of Harry Webster (2026): Directed by Murda Hill, Hairy Times of Harry Webster is a bizarre, hilarious and surprisingly poignant addition to the mockumentary subgenre. It tracks the meteoric rise, the crushing fall and the inevitable “where are they now?” comeback of Harry Webster. Oh yeah, he’s the most famous spider puppet in Hollywood history. Yes, you read that right. We start in the golden age of puppetry, where Harry Webster was the toast of the town. He was a velvet-coated, multi-limbed icon who starred in high-concept creature features that redefined 1950s cinema. The film covers the scandal, the substance abuse (mostly involving high-grade spider silk and vintage hairspray) and the eventual disappearance into total obscurity. Weird and perfect.

Xolo (2025): Directed by Matthew Serrano, Xolo is simple, intimate and gut-wrenching. Skippy, a small Xoloitzcuintli, wakes up in the middle of the night, driven by hunger. His search for snacks quickly turns into a desperate quest to find his owner, Maria. He discovers her lying motionless on the couch, clearly passed on. Before he can process the tragedy, the front door swings open to reveal Xolotl—the Aztec god of death—arriving to claim her soul. What follows is an unconventional standoff. Instead of attacking, Skippy uses his canine intuition to sense the god’s purpose. The dog embarks on a tour of the home, leading the god through the house and showing him the small, mundane and loving moments that defined Maria’s life. It’s a surreal, meditative look at death, where the monster is actually a divine bureaucrat and the hero is a tiny, devoted dog trying to prove that a life is worth more than just its end. Thanks, Matthew, you made the movie that made me cry the most at Chattanooga Film Festival. I was a mess at the end of this.

Total Party Kill (2026): Directed by Alan Sanchez, Total Party Kill is the kind of high-concept, table-top-inspired mayhem that demands to be watched with a rowdy crowd. A tight-knit, all-female squad of tabletop veterans is deep into a weekend-long campaign. The trouble begins when they unbox a new set of miniatures, including one suspiciously intricate piece that seems to have a personality of its own. As they roll for initiative, it becomes clear that a demonic presence has hitched a ride from the abyss into their living room. As the characters in their game sustain in-game injuries, the players begin to feel the physical toll, turning their comfortable apartment into a deadly trap. It’s a creative way to leverage the game’s logic to heighten the terror, making every dice roll feel like a sentence. I loved this!

Kaiju Kid (2024): Directed by Rusteen Honardoost, Kaiju Kid is an eight-minute explosion of pure, unadulterated passion for the genre. If you’ve ever been the kid who spent more time stomping around your bedroom pretending to be a giant monster than doing your homework, this short film is going to hit you right in the nostalgia. It sure did for me. The setup is as classic as smashing Tokyo. A young boy, completely obsessed with giant monster culture, takes playtime a little too far by trashing his sister’s dollhouse. It’s a relatable bit of sibling friction that quickly spirals out of control. When the sister decides to exact her revenge, the boy retreats to the safety of his closet, where his imagination takes over. What follows is a brilliant hybrid of live-action and stop-motion. The kid’s dreamscape transforms him into his favorite monster, leading to an all-out rampage of miniature proportions. This is a ton of fun.

Legend of Sun Knight (2025): Directed by the duo of Samuel Billings and Landon Nuzum Clark, Legend of Sun Knight is the tale of a wandering knight. When he makes it to the Moon Lord’s domain, he finds shadow, oppression and a kingdom of peasants who have seemingly lost their collective will to fight. What follows is an underdog uprising. The knight quickly realizes that he can’t take down the Moon Lord alone, so he begins the slow, arduous process of rallying the oppressed villagers. Really fun animation!

Monster Medicine (2025): Director Veronica Felicity Johnson delivers a high-energy, darkly humorous take on supernatural medicine with Monster Medicine. This eleven-minute short feels like the pilot. Imagine ER set in East L.A., but instead of heart attacks and accident victims, the triage unit deals with zombies and vampires. The story drops us straight into the chaos of a busy emergency room where Dr. Hunter (Brittany Belt) is barely keeping her head above water. Things go from standard emergency to nightmare shift when a patient named Luna (Andi Norris) arrives exhibiting symptoms of a violent werewolf transformation. While Dr. Hunter tries to balance her medical oath with the insanity unfolding before her, her cynical, seen-it-all colleague, Dr. Clay (Eric Toms), is ready to wash his hands of the whole mess. The situation escalates until the hospital’s top-secret Monster Medicine unit is paged. In come the specialists: a vampire doctor and a zombie physician who treat supernatural ailments with the kind of casual professionalism usually reserved for stitching up a papercut. I want more of this!

M.R.I. (or, Michael Returns Indefinitely) (2025): Directed by John F. Beach, M.R.I. (or Michael Returns Indefinitely), is a cold, clinical and deeply paranoid descent into the kind of healthcare bureaucracy that makes you want to cancel your insurance. Michael has finally reached his breaking point with the labyrinthine inefficiencies of the modern medical industry. After his latest appointment, he does the unthinkable: he openly questions his doctor’s motives. It’s a moment of human defiance that should be unremarkable, but in this film, it’s a death sentence. Michael soon realizes he hasn’t just offended a physician. He’s gone up against the people who run the world. As someone who works in the field, this was almost too real.

Seppuku in the Park (2026): Directed by Nikko Wisner, this has a protagonist who has spent a decade as the face of a ubiquitous insurance mascot. He’s a household name, but he’s also a professional ghost. Nobody knows his real face, and nobody cares. Driven by a volatile mix of ego and existential dread, he decides that to become a real actor, he needs to destroy his public persona. He retreats to an isolated, wind-swept park to essentially purge himself of his mascot identity, but his aspirations manifest as hallucinations. The title isn’t just a metaphor; it’s a mission statement.

Unstrung (2025): Directed by Jerold Wallace, this follows a meticulous, solitary toy maker who prides herself on the ability to breathe life into broken relics. When a high-paying client drops off a battered, antique puppet for an urgent restoration, the toy maker rushes to get it done. However, it all ends up with human puppets, a ton of gore and some really go for it cinematography. Really wild!

Silverbacks (2026): I loved this as much as I hate soccer, which is a lot. Amazingly directed, great actors and some hilarious dialogue. I want an entire series. Directed by Dave Willis—a name that should be familiar to anyone who has spent their late nights glued to Adult Swim—Silverbacks is a sharp, hilarious thirty-minute look at the indignities of middle age. If you’ve ever reached for a bottle of ibuprofen after a weekend hobby, this one is going to feel like a documentary. I mean, I sure have. The premise is deceptively simple: a group of men decides that the best way to reclaim their youth is to form a soccer team. It’s not about winning trophies or glory; it’s about the primal, desperate struggle to navigate the pitch without throwing a hip out or pulling a hamstring. Look for Henry Zebrowski, Steve Coulter, Cooper Andrews and Rory Scovel as members of the crew.

You can watch this either in-person or virtually at the Chattanooga Film Festival. For more info, visit the official site.

That Damned Thing (2026): This short by Christopher Lewis is exactly the kind of grim discovery that’ll keep you up. It’s a lean, mean creature-feature procedural that doesn’t bother with grand explanations, focusing instead on the cold, hard reality of an autopsy gone wrong. Set in a coroner’s inquest, what begins as a routine examination of an inexplicable death quickly spirals into a full-blown crisis. As the facts fail to align and the physical evidence starts pointing to something that defies traditional biology, the morgue feels like it becomes a haunted house. Plus, Lewis plays a smart game with the monster here. He knows the most terrifying beasts are the ones that stay just out of focus for as long as possible.

Hatchlings (2025): Directed by Jahmil Eady, Hatchlings stars a resentful, bored teenager stuck babysitting her half-brother, a kid whose obsession with turtles is bordering on the spectrum. But instead of just a quiet afternoon in the living room, Eady kicks the door open into a vivid, hallucinatory fantasy world. As the brother dives headfirst into his own imagination, he becomes a sea turtle navigating the depths, while his sister is involuntarily cast as a slow-moving tortoise. Somehow, this all forces them to confront their sibling baggage in the most unexpected way possible.

Eternal (2026): Joshua Jeffrey Miller’s Eternal isn’t looking for cheap jump scares; it’s looking for the bottom of a bottle, the end of a rope, and the haunting reality of what happens when a man decides he’s done with the land of the living. We follow a man absolutely hollowed out by grief. He’s not looking for closure. Instead, he’s looking for an exit strategy. In his desperate state, he begins to actively hunt for death, not as a tragedy, but as a bridge. It’s a way to cross over and catch one final glimpse of the loved one he’s lost. This one gets dark.

Pyre (2026): Dylan Miller’s Pyre manages to trade cheap jump scares for the slow-drip dread of a tightening noose. Set in a desolate 17th-century village where the mud is as thick as the religious hysteria, the film is a masterclass in claustrophobic intensity. The story centers on Elspeth, a widowed mother struggling to maintain a quiet existence in a community already on the brink of collapse. Her life is upended when a charismatic, traveling inquisitor arrives. He isn’t the lumbering brute one might expect. Instead, he is polished, soft-spoken and terrifyingly calculated. Under the guise of cleansing the village of unnatural influence, he zeroes in on Elspeth. The film pivots from a period drama into a psychological crucible, pun intended, when the inquisitor presents her with an ultimatum: confess to a crime she didn’t commit to spare her daughter’s life or maintain her innocence and watch the flames consume everything she loves. It is a grim, unrelenting look at how faith can be weaponized for absolute control. A dark story told well.

Ride Pending (2026): Directed by Sam Tiwanak, this has Sara (Elena Vance) making the mistake of pushing her luck on a remote mountain hike. Stranded as the sun starts to dip below the horizon, she fires up an app and summons a ride. Enter Henry. He’s prompt, he’s polite, and he’s driving a car that looks a little too clean for these dirt roads. At first, it’s just awkward small talk. Then, it’s a missed turn. Then, it’s the realization that Henry isn’t following the GPS. As the miles tick away and the interior of the car starts to feel less like a taxi and more like a prison, Sara has to play the ultimate game of cat and mouse. It’s a claustrophobic nightmare that plays out in real-time, focusing on the agonizing transition from uncomfortable passenger to fighting for your life.

The Arcade Attendants (2026): Directed by Corbin W.M. Peek, this is set in the waning days of the arcade golden age and follows a group of underpaid, perpetually bored teenagers running a massive game room. It’s all apathy, cheap pizza and trying to avoid the manager until an ancient, unlabeled cabinet arrives in the back office. Once a few high-score seekers start messing with it, the boundaries between the pixelated world and the strip mall reality start to buckle. Suddenly, the jump scares aren’t just happening in the games. They’re bleeding into the prize counter. I really loved all the supers in this and how much it brings in video game content.

Crossfaded: Thesis Film (2026): Jeffrey Rucker’s Crossfaded is for anyone who’s survived a house party. Jax is a dealer who views the world through a haze of smoke. Brian is a social drinker who just wants to be loved. When they find themselves accidentally locked in the basement, they’re forced to connect with one another. What starts as a standard stoner comedy rapidly devolves into a surrealist chamber piece. As the crossfaded state of the title sets in, the basement starts to feel less like a room and more like a purgatory. The walls seem to close in, the frat-house music upstairs turns into a throb, and these two strangers realize that in a world this superficial, they might be the only two real people left.

Mystic Stylez (2025): Lil’ K, a rapper whose career is currently flatlined at the bottom of the Memphis underground. Tired of playing to empty bars, he turns to an occult ritual to manifest fame and fortune. The payoff is instant. His beats get tighter, the crowds get bigger,and the tracks start climbing the charts. But the price of admission is soul-deep. As Lil’ K’s reality begins to fray, he realizes the sinister forces he invited in aren’t just looking for a feature on his next track. It’s a classic Faustian bargain, but with a trunk-rattling bass line and enough Southern-gothic atmosphere to fill a graveyard. Director Giovanni D. Fleming commissioned local Memphis producers to create original tracks for the film. The music isn’t just background noise. It’s practically a character in the film, with the cursed beats actually changing tempo and pitch as the protagonist’s sanity slips away.

Private I (2024): Directed by Evan Patrick Adam, this film follows a basement-dwelling bellboy (Leo Vance) who spends his nights not just hauling luggage, but cataloging the lives of guests through the lens of a high-end digital camera. He’s the ultimate invisible man, convinced he’s the smartest guy in the hotel until he catches sight of a mysterious, porcelain-faced woman (Sarah Jenkins) checking into the penthouse. His obsession with her leads him down a rabbit hole of conspiracies, hidden identities and shallow graves. But as the investigation deepens, the line between his digital archives and his own reality starts to dissolve. He realizes that the footage he’s been collecting has made him a person of interest in a game he doesn’t fully understand, forcing him to turn the camera on himself.

Knifeman (2025): Horatio Hunt is an IRS agent. He’s a man whose life is defined by audits, spreadsheets and the crushing weight of small-town corruption. He’s the definition of mild-mannered, the guy you’d never notice in a crowded room. But when a shadow organization begins tearing his city apart and the legal system proves too slow to stop them, Horatio stops crunching numbers and starts crunching skulls. Trading his calculator for a collection of high-carbon steel blades, he becomes the city’s most surgical predator. It’sFalling Down meets a slasher flick, where the protagonist is just as terrifying as the villains he’s hunting while also looking vaguely sentai.

You can watch this either in-person or virtually at the Chattanooga Film Festival. For more info, visit the official site.