Movies
‘The Balconettes’ Trailer – Noémie Merlant’s Summer Horror-Comedy Spirals into Bloody Chaos
Award-winning French actress Noémie Merlant (Baby Ruby, Portrait of a Lady on Fire) is unleashing raucous revenge in horror-comedy The Balconettes, and the energetic trailer has arrived ahead of the film’s release from The Forge.
The limited theatrical run for The Balconettes kicks off with a week of screenings at the IFC Center in New York City and the Landmark’s Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles from August 22 through August 28, followed by a sustained release in additional markets.
Merlant doesn’t just topline the film; The Balconettes marks her sophomore directorial effort. Merland also co-wrote the horror-comedy with Pauline Munier and Portrait of a Lady on Fire filmmaker Céline Sciamma.
The film follows three roommates gleefully meddling in the lives of their neighbors from their Marseilles balcony during a sweltering heat wave, until a late-night drink spirals into a bloody confrontation.
Souheila Yacoub (Dune: Part Two, Climax), Sanda Codreanu (Call My Agent), and Lucas Bravo (Emily in Paris) also star.
“It’s such a joy to know that The Balconettes is being released in the United States, the country of cinema,” Merlant says. “Sharing the film there feels deeply meaningful to me, because so much of my love for storytelling was shaped by American film culture. To see this strange, fearless little movie find its audience in such a historic space for cinema is an emotional milestone. This is a film we made with our hearts and our guts: together, as a team, and in close collaboration with Céline Sciamma. It’s a love cry for creative freedom, for genre-mixing, for bold ideas and joyful chaos.
“But at its core, it’s a film about sisterhood, and a scream against the patriarchy: against all the forces that try to shame, silence, and control us. It’s a wild ride: violent, funny, tender, and unruly. My hope is that it makes people feel a little more free, and a little less alone.”
“The Balconettes doesn’t just play with genre, it detonates it,“ says Mark Sayre, CEO of The Forge. “Noémie [Merlant] has made a film that’s as uncontainable as the women at its center: wild, funny, furious, and alive with risk. We couldn’t look away, and we didn’t want to. Releasing this movie feels less like a business decision and more like a dare. One we’re proud to take.”
Watch the infectious trailer for the upcoming summer horror-comedy now.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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