Movies
[Telluride Horror Show Review] ‘Deadtectives’ is a Non-Stop Blast
Tony West pulls off the near-impossible with his new film Deadtectives: he’s crafted a tonally perfect horror comedy, one that balances scares, laughs and heart-tugs with equal success. There’s not a single beat that doesn’t work in this hilarious, spooky film, and that’s a rarity, indeed.
You’re The Worst‘s Chris Geere plays Sam, the host of a lackluster ghost-hunting reality TV series on its last legs in both ratings and ideas. Sam’s joined by his competent producer/wife Kate (Tina Ivlev), cocky co-host Javier (José María de Tavira) and Sam’s unsophisticated brother Lloyd (David Newman), the only member of this team that actually believes ghosts are real.
By the time we meet the Deadtectives, everything’s falling apart: Kate’s tired of duping innocent victims who believe their cupcake stands are haunted by vengeful grandmas or whatever, and the network’s ready to cancel them after seasons of bad ratings. The network exec gives them one last chance, surrendering them to an unhinged and ball-busting new producer (Martha Higareda) and sending them all to a much scarier location than they’re accustomed to facing. After some mildly racist travel gags, they arrive at an ancient home in Mexico that’s been beset by the unholy trinity of supernatural motivations: Mayan curses, Revolutionary War mayhem and the murder/suicide of a family. As you might suspect, Sam and his team are immediately in over their heads when actual ghosts appear.
This movie is funny. Our audience was full-on guffawing at most of the jokes, which are delivered at an almost breakneck speed. But it’s also legitimately creepy at times, with some very effective jump-scares, ghostly gore and extremely cool and clearly defined supernatural rules, some of which we’ve rarely seen before, like a window/portal trick that is used sparingly and well throughout the film.
Deadtectives works on a visual level, too: it’s bright and stylish, with cool makeup effects and excellent production design. It moves at a swift and captivating pace, never giving the audience a chance to be bored or wonder how much time has passed since the opening credits. There are no lulls in Deadtectives; there’s no fat to be trimmed. Everything matters and engages here, and perhaps most impressively, the few emotional moments actually land, too. There’s some moving character nuance given to Sam that won’t make viewers want to roll their eyes: it’s deftly woven into the rest of the story and both preceded and followed by immediate laughs and scares. That’s just how I want my feelings stuff in a horror comedy!
In spirit and tone, Deadtectives could almost be called Beetlejuice-y at times, and of course that’s not a title that should be summoned lightly. But much like Tim Burton’s arguably best film, Deadtectives offers a groovy, free-wheeling energy that dips back and forth between scary and funny with shocking ease. Watch just about any other horror comedy out there and ask yourself how easy that is to accomplish. It’s much, much harder than Tony West makes it seem here.
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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