Movies
[FrightFest Review] ‘Sadistic Intentions’ Gives ‘Before Sunrise’ Romance a Horror Spin
Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise stripped the standard meet-cute romance formula of all its frills and delivered a dialogue-heavy depiction of two people falling in love over the course of one evening. Think independent filmmaking that favors naturalism, and an influential precursor to the mumblecore movement. Sadistic Intentions takes that same conceit, but infuses it with heavy metal and psychotic characters.
Chloe (Taylor Zaudtke) is a 20-something that spends her days escaping reality, either by drugs or by dwelling on possibilities of attending a college far from home. When she gets a call from her drug dealer Kevin (Michael Patrick Nicholson) asking her to go in on a deal, she’s reluctant but heads over to his specified address against her better judgment. There she finds a sprawling estate, but no sign of Kevin. Instead there’s Stu (Jeremy Gardner), Kevin’s bandmate who has also been lured there. While they wait for Kevin’s arrival, awkward small talk turns to tentative bonding to potential for something more. Until the rug is violently yanked out under both of them and they realize Kevin had something much more sinister in mind for the pair.
Save for an opening sequence montage that sets up the horror elements, much of the short run time is dedicated to the budding relationship between Chloe and Stu. Written and directed by Eric Pennycoff in his feature length film debut, Sadistic Intentions will likely lull you into forgetting there’s anything horror at all once Chloe and Stu grow more comfortable with one another. She’s bohemian and he’s hardcore metal, but can these opposites attract?
Pennycoff favors simplicity, letting everything hang on the actors’ performances. Gardner and Zaudtke are more than up to the task; there’s an authentic rapport between the pair that feels often awkward but always endearing. Even when Gardner’s Stu has a manic edge about him.
The movie shifts gears dramatically in the final act, when Kevin finally makes his entrance. It’s this turning point that brings the narrative back into the realm of horror, though it doesn’t quite offer any surprises. From the opening, it’s clear that Kevin is absolutely unhinged and dangerous. We never see him fully until the final 30 minutes; most of his performance is via phone conversations with Chloe and Stu as they try to find out where he is. In these phone calls, it seems as though Nicholson is channeling his inner Crispin Glover as a means of conveying his character’s psychosis.
The final moments are satisfying, and offer up an interesting subversion of character archetypes. Overall, this is a character study and Gardner’s show. It’s through Chloe that Stu embarks on an emotional journey, one that begins in simple metal aspirations and transforms into something more once human connection enters the fold. That’s this film in a nutshell; a simple meet-cute with a violent climax. Unlike the title implications, though, Sadistic Intentions is wholly tender and sweet. Which will polarize those looking for something much more traditional, and much more, well, horror-filled. If you can get on board with a horror adjacent romance that’s minimal on action and heavy on dialogue, then you’ll likely fall for Stu and Chloe’s twisted charms.
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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