Movies
[Fantasia Review] ‘Pledge’ Delivers Twisted Thrills to Familiar Story
There have been countless stories in the news of college hazing gone wrong, and one of the biggest questions that emerges is why anyone would want to join a fraternity or sorority that gleefully demoralizes those who wish to join their ranks. Or how far are you willing to go to find acceptance? Pledge follows a trio of freshmen looking to make the most of their college experience by seeking out a fraternity to join during rush week. When they’re consistently rebuffed by all the campus frats, a beautiful woman invites them to an isolated mansion party. There they find a welcoming upper-class fraternity, but joining them means they might not make it out alive.
Lead protagonists Justin (Zachery Byrd), Ethan (Phillip Andre Botello), and David (screenwriter Zack Weiner) are quickly established as archetypal outcasts. David is the driving force behind the friends’ quest for fraternity membership; Ethan and Justin are far more content to hang out in their dorm rooms and play video games. It means that David is also the most desperate to find acceptance. After a long day of rejection, the friendly reception by Max (Aaron Dalla Villa), Bret (Jesse Pimental), and Ricky (Cameron Cowperthwaite) at their posh mansion is a soothing balm. It gives plausibility and insight to why these freshmen take a while to realize their new buds have nefarious designs on their pledging.
From the setup, and the stereotypical characters, you can pretty much guess how this night will play out. What keeps it from falling into tedium, however, is the journey itself. Each act of hazing and initiation increases in depravity and violence. There’s a twisted voyeuristic quality as you watch Max, Bret, and Ricky blend together the most repulsive ingredients and force their unsuspecting pledges to eat it. That’s just one of the more mundane hazing rituals the fraternity brothers subject their pledges to. Screenwriter Weiner and director Daniel Robbins have effectively created a college hazing version of the boiling frog fable, this one steeped in pitch black humor and shocking violence. Eventually, our plucky leads realize they might be in over their heads and the night turns into a tense standoff.
The short run time and lean pacing means a mean thriller with creative ways for the leads to get subjected to cringe-worthy brutality. There’s a grainy haze to scenes shot in dim lighting that distracts at times, but otherwise, Robbins delivers a film that feels bigger than its budget. Pledge is a film where the second act shines, focused more on the action and sickening violence than characters. There’s not a lot of depth to the characters; each one serves a specific purpose and stereotype to fill. Justin and Ethan are the most fully developed and Byrd and Botello imbue them with empathy and intelligence. The villains don’t fare as well, with Pimental and Dalla Villa opting for mustache-twirling caricatures of entitled elite.
For those that like their thrillers fast and warped, Pledge is an entertaining take on a familiar story. Partying, torture, death, and dark humor makes for a fun and sometimes gruesome watch. The quick pace heightens the stakes quickly, but it also doesn’t leave any room to get to know any of the characters beyond their surface value. Ultimately, though, it succeeds in what it set out to accomplish.
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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