Filmed three years ago, Mark Netter’s “new” award winning* sci-fi thriller Nightmare Code has had a long road to its release. While it’s not getting a full theatrical release, it was able to get enough funding for an online release and eventual DVD (which comes out in November). For a film working with a budget of roughly $80,000, the final product is quite impressive and feels like a theatrically released studio film.

Brett Desmond (Andrew J. West, The Walking Dead) is a programmer with some legal problems is hired by a tech company who promises to make those problems go away if he can manage to complete work on R.O.P.E.R., a top-secret behavior recognition program. The only thing is, the program’s creator (Googy Gress, Apollo 13) went on a murder/suicide spree in the office building just days earlier. Working on a strict deadline and sleeping in the office, Brett works with Nora (Mei Melançon, X-Men: The Last Stand) and Kevin (Reginald Huc) to debug the code, and soon learns that the program is starting to modify his behavior to resemble that of the dead program creator.

Nightmare Code is technically a found footage film, which we have had in overabundance in the past few years. That being said, the film takes a unique filming approach by dividing the screen into four quadrants that stay filming for the majority (there are security cameras placed all over the office and each of the four quadrants changes perspective from the multiple cameras). This isn’t a revolutionary technique (Mike Figgis’ Timecode did it with mixed results back in 2000), but it works surprisingly well throughout the duration of the film and manages to keep you engaged during the course of its 90 minutes.

A slow build is pretty standard for the found footage sub-genre, but what Nightmare Code has going for it is the performances of pretty much everyone in the cast. There isn’t a weak performance in the bunch and all of the actors sell a decent script. Speaking of the script (which was written by Netter and M.J. Rotondi), there are some weaknesses to be seen in some of the dialogue, which is a little weak (a character says something like “I was polite to him, but inside I was screaming at him,” and later the character she was referring to says “She was being polite to me, but I feel like she was screaming at me on the inside”). The actors do a successful job of selling it for the most part.

The concept behind R.O.P.E.R. is the most interesting aspect of Nightmare Code, and it gets put to excellent use during a suspenseful sequence where we get to see the video footage of the programmer on his murder spree. He uses the program to tell if a potential victim is lying or not, thereby determining their fate. Some aspects about the program don’t make a lot of sense. For example, it’s supposed to recognize behaviors, but when the programmer shoots someone in the chest the program reads “Dying,” which isn’t a behavior. The film also turns into somewhat of a slasher in its final act, which I love but others might not appreciate as much. These are all just minor quibbles in a surprisingly strong film though.

Nightmare Code proves to be a strong directorial debut for first-time director Mark Netter. With a solid cast, an ambitious script and unique filming style, the film turns out to be a lot better than one would expect. It’s a shame that it took three years to see a release, but Nightmare Code is a clever little thriller that probably would have been ahead of its time had it been released right after filming. If the film is any indication, we can look forward to great things from Netter in the future.

*Nightmare Code was a “Grand Prize Feature” at the 2015 Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival and won “Best Thriller Feature Film” at the 14th Annual Shriekfest Horror & Science Fiction Film Festival.

Nightmare Code is currently available to watch on Google Play but will be released on iTunes on September 29th.