Reviews
‘Alan at Night’ CFF Review – Internet Prankster Deals with Roommate from Hell in POV Horror Comedy
Nowadays, everyone has a YouTube channel or TikTok account to document every aspect of their daily lives and share with the world in the hope of getting likes and followers. In Jesse Swansen’s directorial debut Alan at Night, which he also wrote, podcasters and video pranksters Jay (Joseph Basquill) and Camilo (Jorge Felipe Guevara) have founded a channel called Rad Apple, where they post videos of themselves playing wacky pranks on people. When Camilo loses his job and has to move out of their Brooklyn apartment, Jay is in desperate need of a roommate. Jay’s girlfriend Samantha (Hadley Durkee) agrees to move in with him in a month, so he only needs to get a new roommate for one month. When he finally finds someone willing to rent the room for a month, he has no idea that it’s going to change his life in the worst possible way.
A man named Alan Whitehead (Chris Ash) from Alabama responds to Jay’s ad for a roommate and seems like a nice guy. Alan is a herpetologist and studies reptiles and amphibians. He’s shy and socially awkward, but he helps around the house and keeps to himself. He’s a good roommate until he starts snoring loudly in the middle of the night and wakes up Jay. The snoring is incredibly loud and sounds unearthly, so Jay decides to start filming Alan at night. Things start to get weird after a party where they convince Alan to drink too much, and he passes out. When Jay and Camilo went in to check on him, while filming everything, Alan was asleep, but opened his eyes and they were white like he was possessed.
As Alan’s nightly activities get stranger, including sleepwalking and binge eating entire jars of mayonnaise, Ash gives an imposing performance as Alan. He’s no longer the quiet, timid guy who moved in with Jay. Ash does an excellent job of portraying a man whose whole personality changes; he gets defensive and angry at Jay for filming him. A putrid smell begins coming from Alan’s room, and eventually, the entire apartment smells like a sewer. Jay is so exasperated that he sets up security cameras around the house to document Alan’s peculiar, increasingly frightening nightly activities.
Alan at Night also highlights the invasion of privacy that is involved with putting everything about someone on the internet and how the current social media culture thrives on going viral. Joseph Basquill gives a realistic performance as Jay, a man who is torn between potential internet fame and the consequences of posting Alan’s obvious struggle with what might be a mental health issue or something much worse online for the whole world to see.
There are some great comedic moments as Jay and Camilo film podcast episodes with various guests that are a great parody of YouTubers. Most of the film is shot in POV style so that the audience feels like they are witnessing Alan’s weirdness with Jay, and this is very effective in showcasing the increasing feeling of dread that Jay is experiencing. These days, everyone has a podcast, but everyone doesn’t have a roommate who might be possessed, snores like a rusty chainsaw, and leaves gallon containers of urine in his room.
Surprisingly, Alan at Night expertly evolves from a story about a roommate from hell into somewhat of a creature feature with some terrifying and slightly amusing practical effects. Impressive and relatable storytelling in the style of those of us who are extremely online makes this a compelling, sometimes disturbing film with a dash of dark humor.
Alan at Night premiered at Chattanooga Film Festival 2025, which is offering a hybrid festival experience again this year.
Movies
‘Recluse’ Review – Harrowing Haunted House Horror With Lots Of Skeletons In Its Closet [Tribeca 2026]
A haunted house story is tense, terrifying storytelling when it’s properly executed. There’s been a growing tendency in horror to blend together harrowing haunted house stories with traumatic homecomings. A family member’s illness or death triggers a return to something dark that was intentionally left behind. Recluse hits all the tropes that one expects to find in this type of horror film, yet it manages to push this story in a daring, disturbing new direction that uses sound as a superpower.
It’s a unique lens to experience a familiar story about family secrets, generational trauma, unresolved grief, and the importance of not just legacy, but preservation. It’s a hell of a directorial debut from Henry Chaisson that’s guaranteed to get under the audience’s skin as they’re dragged through this painful, toxic tale.
Recluse is a gothic haunted house story where an isolated audio engineer, Joan (Sasha Frolova), returns to her family’s estate to check in on her father after he suffers a terrible accident. Joan suddenly discovers something much more sinister that paints her family’s tragedies in a very different light. Chaisson’s debut functions as a fascinating companion piece to this year’s undertone, which does a lot of the same things.
These two films make for a fascinating case of parallel thinking that tackles comparable subject matter through a similar lens, albeit in a bigger, less claustrophobic story in Recluse’s case. In fact, it’s the perfect horror film for anyone who was let down by undertone and didn’t feel like it brought enough to the table. It’s a considerably more conventional horror film, but this isn’t meant to denigrate its high quality. Recluse may hit some familiar notes, but it’s a scary, well-crafted haunted house horror story that goes for the jugular.
A gripping mystery that involves the tragic, unresolved circumstances that surround Joan’s mother teases a chilling connection to the recent horrors that have afflicted her father. Joan desperately tries to put these pieces together and give her family some sense of grander peace before she’s pulled under and becomes another victim of this festering curse that’s systematically worked its way through the Wyatt family. By doing so, Recluse digs into some deeper commentary on collective trauma, a very literal look at the “sins of the father” adage, and how one selfish decision can ripple through generations and fracture off into different dilemmas. By the end, Recluse has brilliantly flipped the powerful concept of legacy on its head by illustrating the horrors and sense of entitlement that can be born out of this idea.
A legacy is just another name for a curse under the right context.
”Listen” is a simple but powerful command from Joan’s father that she briefly obsesses over. In a way, it becomes Recluse’s grander mission statement, whether it’s in response to Joan listening to the people in her life, the signals that her body and mind are telling her, or the world’s greater whims. It’s important to reconnect with these grounding pillars, especially when it feels like control is slipping away.
Recluse excels with how audio and soundscapes can create entire universes that are full of rich details that transport individuals to these environments. There’s also a level of objectivity when it comes to audio recordings and the evergreen permanence that they’re able to provide. Joan’s career as an audio engineer makes sense for someone who wants to cling to hard evidence and proof of existence. It provides great insight into Joan without ever getting lost in contrived exposition.
Joan’s entire life is built around audio engineering, and so it makes sense that Recluse features excellent sound design that really goes above and beyond with its production elements. All of the sound design is expertly handled and turns the film into something special. These auditory elements intuitively keep the audience on edge so that they’re more susceptible to the actual scares that eventually strike. The smallest sound effect gets turned into a crushing, cacophonous assault. It’s a really effective way to build terror. Writer/Director Chaisson also handles the film’s music, which achieves a sublime, unnerving dissonance that further heightens the free-floating anxiety.
The story at the center of Recluse is slightly generic in some respects, but the film’s visual language and tone make it feel distinctly memorable. It also doesn’t hurt that the home that Joan returns to is basically an eerie art studio that’s full of contorted paintings. Recluse never struggles to generate mounting dread and terror that pump through every scene. Powerful, thoughtful cinematography consistently reinforces the film’s themes. Joan is constantly reflected in different surfaces or viewed through mirrors. She’s also often confined to tight, constricting framing that all speaks to her refracted identity during this moment of loss and her attempts to regain agency and control by making sense of something that’s seemingly unexplainable.
Recluse is full of truly disturbing visuals that make it seem like Joan is lost in a dream that turns out to be an extended nightmare. It’s a surreal journey reminiscent of invasive psychological horror like Silent Hill, with a touch of Sinister and Hereditary thrown in for good measure. There are so many individual frames that could endlessly fuel urban legends and creepypastas.
It does a great job with how it presents Joan’s fragile state of mind, where chilling flashes of the past sneak up on her and unresolved trauma manifests into unsettling imagery. There are endless shots that are obscured in darkness, or shadow is creeping in from the corners of frames like a suffocating force of nature. It’s very rare that a scene is fully lit. It leads to a very lonely, isolating atmosphere that’s easy to get lost in.
Chaisson’s debut stands out from the many other high-minded haunted house horror films without succumbing to the same pretensions that often drag down these stories. It’s a grief-stricken character study that’s full of upsetting visuals that scratch at something visceral and raw. The horror elements connect, and the answers to its grander mystery provide an appropriate and believable sense of closure. Those who are looking for an atmospheric horror film that isn’t afraid to be different while still channeling something real will appreciate Recluse.
Recluse made its world premiere at Tribeca; release info TBD.
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