Principal photography has wrapped on Hypernormalized, an independent horror-thriller shot between four cities: Los Angeles, Toronto, Tokyo, and Málaga, Spain.

Justin McConnell (Lifechanger) directs, handling the Canadian shoot in person and supervising the others remotely. Unit directors include Tricia Lee (Silent Retreat) in the U.S., Darryl Shaw in Japan, and Adam Mason (Songbird) in Spain.

In the film, plagued by intense nightmares and a relentless otherworldly entity, one isolated man’s sanity begins to slip. As he works to understand the source of his torment, he begins to suspect his overseas online friend group is experiencing the same occurrences.

Robert LaSardo (“Nip/Tuck”), Michelle D’Alessandro Hatt (Lifechanger), Victor Miró, Hiroshi Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima), Matt Farley, Duane Whitaker (Pulp Fiction), Caryn Richman (Beyond the Gates), Adrian Patterson, Adam Buller, and McConnell himself star.

Practical make-up effects were handled by David Scott (In the Tall Grass, The Blackcoat’s Daughter).

The genre-bending story mixes a traditionally shot narrative with various forms of modern media platforms, including VRChat, the largest VR-based social platform in the world.

“When approaching this project, I wanted to tell a globally-minded story steeped in the existential dread we all experience to varying degrees,” said McConnell “It’s a very art-collective approach to production, in a lot of ways. It just happens the collective is located all across the globe, and new tech allows us to work like we were in the same room.”

From Unstable Ground and Federgreen Entertainment, the film is produced by McConnell produced and executive produced by Avi Federgreen (Frankie Freako, Deathstalker).

Duane Whitaker in ‘Pulp Fiction’