HUMAN

***

Directed by Matt Stuertz.

Starring Jackie Kelly, Jeffrey Decker, Brock Russell.

Horror, US, 107 Minutes.

Reviewed as part of FrightFest 2025 - World Premiere

With his latest feature, director Matt Stuertz levels up with this low budget offering that while not without flaws, is ambitious on a number of levels in terms of style, themes and execution. At first glance you may think that you’re being treated to a screenlife treatise as a woman scrolls through her phone, hopping from platform to platform, before eventually settling on a dating app. Stuertz pulls us back from this lengthy, engagingly detailed sequence to show us that we are seeing all of this through the eyes of Dani, a young woman lying in bed late at night. Dani’s late night scrolling soon settles down once she reconnects with her ex, Aaron, but this late night flirting soon gives way to a gory and gloopy battle for survival against someone, or something, that Dani is simply not prepared for.

Far from being a woman-in-peril thriller, HUMAN escalates into something else entirely. While low in budget, the film is high in ambition. The reveal of Dani’s true location is clever and witty, lending the film a near meta-quality that hints at Suertz’s own background in filmmaking. This meta nature takes on yet another level of meaning once the nature of Dani’s aggressor is revealed. While the films first and last shots of the films heroine closely mirror each other, the film's plot has metamorphosed a number of times in between; flipping from siege thriller to stomach churning body horror and comedy to trippy cosmic horror, paying homage and taking cues from the likes of Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi and cult comic book writers such as Grant Morrison and Peter Milligan.

Stuertz’s shotgun blast direction is nicely complimented by Jackie Kelly’s performance. The film is very much a one woman show and Kelly handles and carries it on her shoulders exceptionally well. Anger, fear, disgust and a blissed out realisation/acceptance of her predicament are just some of the emotional stages she takes the audience through as she struggles through this long dark siege of the soul her character unwittingly finds herself in.

The film's ambitions may somewhat be belied by its budget, leading on to some pacing issues. A couple of scenes may run too lengthy with certain philosophical musings it leads into, perhaps frustrating an  audience keener for gore and mayhem. While one particular sequence featuring gallons of blood and other far less savoury bodily fluids could turn off the more cerebrally inclined members of the audience who would no doubt tune into the films more far out leanings.

This messiness however shows a real yearning to stretch out creatively on the director and writers part and it is exciting and entertaining to watch. After a number of shorts and micro-budget features, Stuertz has more than shown his ambition.  Now it is high time for him to be given the chance to hone his exciting and challenging writing and directing skills with bigger resources to hone his unique vision.

Iain MacLeod