A slow-burn psychological thriller edges into domestic horror in our exclusive Tender trailer.
Jesse Garcia (“From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series”), Jess Weixler (Teeth), and Robert Longstreet (“The Haunting of Hill House”) star in the film.
Blending mounting dread with the claustrophobia of a crumbling relationship, Tender follows a couple trapped in a failing marriage and suffocating under debt who discover a hidden stash of gold buried within the walls of their home.
What begins as salvation quickly curdles into obsession. As they devise a plan to offload the fortune and escape financial ruin, suspicion metastasizes, trust fractures, and the house itself becomes a pressure cooker of paranoia.
Adam Hoelzel makes his feature directorial debut from his own script, which leans into the quiet terror of intimacy — the horror of realizing the person beside you may no longer be your partner, but your greatest threat.
Shakira Barrera (“Ironheart”), David Koechner (Anchorman), Mark St. Cyr (The Menu), Sonja O’Hara, Stephen Ellis, Robert Peters, and Alexander Cubis (“Ruthless”) round out the ensemble cast.
Producers include O’Hara, Sofia Rovaletti, Farrell Ingle, Theo Bucksey, Roy Hsu, Grayson Hay, Corey Moosa (Margin Call), David Hopwood (Den of Thieves), Michael K. Dwyer of A Group of Ferrets, and Juan Pablo Reinoso of Firebook Entertainment.
“This film explores how desperation can rot a relationship from the inside out,” says Hoelzel. “We were interested in the psychological unraveling — the way fear and greed distort perception until love starts to feel like a trap.”
Hoelzel — who recently wrapped production on the body horror thriller Snare, co-directed by O’Hara — will be participating in a narrative filmmaking roundtable at SXSW in Texas this weekend.