Breeder

THERE’S A CATCH

Russell wants to save the bees.

That requires science.

Science requires money.

And Russell doesn't have any.

In Alex Goyette's Breeder, Daniel Doheny plays Russell, a college researcher working on what Tribeca describes as a potentially game-changing solution to help save the endangered bee population from extinction. 

There's just one problem.

He can't get the project funded.

Then Patti appears.

Played by Dot-Marie Jones, Patti is an eccentric poodle breeder living off the grid on an isolated ranch.

And Patti has money.

She offers to fund Russell's research.

For somebody watching years of work stall because nobody will pay for it, that's difficult to ignore.

So Russell goes to the ranch.

At first, he only needs to determine whether Patti's offer is legitimate.

It is.

The conditions attached to it are the problem.

Patti will give Russell the money.

But she wants something from him in return.

She wants him to breed with her daughter.

And suddenly the title makes considerably more sense.

That proposition is not a late-film spoiler we're revealing for effect. Tribeca itself made it part of the movie's official festival synopsis, because it establishes the actual horror story Goyette is telling.

Russell isn't simply being offered money for sex.

He has walked into somebody else's ideas about breeding, genetics and human selection.

The same man attempting to use science to preserve one species finds himself treated as biological material by somebody with a very different vision of what selective breeding should accomplish.

That's where Breeder gets ugly.

And funny.

Sometimes simultaneously.

Tribeca describes Goyette's feature debut as the darkest of dark comedies, emphasizing how the movie mines deliberately uncomfortable laughs from its increasingly absurd situation while remaining an unpredictable horror film. 

That tonal combination has also defined the early critical response.

Following the Tribeca premiere, Bloody Disgusting described the film as both visceral and darkly funny, with its horror rooted in eugenics, economic desperation and Russell's willingness to compromise because his scientific future depends on money. 

And Russell's desperation matters.

Without it, Patti's offer is simply bizarre.

With it, the proposition becomes a trap.

How much humiliation will someone tolerate for the chance to save years of work?

How suspicious can an offer become before desperation stops making it attractive?

And once Russell understands exactly what Patti wants—

how easily can he leave?

Tribeca doesn't hide the answer to that last question either.

When Russell initially refuses Patti's proposition, she holds him captive. 

At that point, negotiation becomes survival.

The isolated ranch stops being the location of a strange business meeting.

It becomes the place Russell needs to escape.

And Patti stops being an eccentric potential investor.

She becomes the movie's human monster.

There is no supernatural creature required.

No demon.

No ghost.

No ancient curse.

Just a person with enough conviction, control and money to decide that another human being should participate in her plan.

Tribeca's programmers were particularly enthusiastic about Dot-Marie Jones's performance, placing Patti in the tradition of horror's memorable flesh-and-blood antagonists and describing Jones as the movie's murderous center. 

That's a notable turn for an actor many viewers will immediately recognize from roles far removed from this material.

Opposite her, Doheny's Russell is not arriving at the ranch as an action hero.

He's a researcher.

He's broke.

He's ambitious.

And his vulnerability comes partly from the fact that Patti possesses the exact thing he needs.

Money.

Maddie Phillips plays Patti's daughter Ainsley, the woman Russell is expected to impregnate as part of Patti's arrangement. 

Tanaya Beatty also stars, with the larger cast including Carmen Moore, Paige McGarvin and Lillian Doucet-Roche. 

Behind the camera, Breeder is unusually personal to Goyette.

He wrote, directed and edited the movie himself. 

And the film didn't suddenly appear in 2026.

The project has been connected to Tribeca for years.

Breeder began its path toward production as a 2019 Tribeca Creators Market project, then returned seven years later as a finished feature for its world premiere in the festival's Escape From Tribeca genre program. 

The finished production is a Canada/U.S. feature photographed by Jaryl Lim, with production design by Skye Dykenand music by Hannah Parrott. 

Its credited producers include Ian Start, Byron Ashley, Brian Mitchell, Chris Wilkinson and K. Asher Levin, while Steven Schneider, whose credits include Paranormal Activity and Late Night with the Devil, is among the executive producers. 

Independent Film Company and Shudder acquired the film immediately ahead of its Tribeca premiere, securing rights across the United States, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. 

The finished movie runs 97 minutes. 

And the MPA-rated theatrical version carries an R for disturbing material, violence/bloody images, sexual content, graphic nudity, and language. 

That description is useful because it tells us something without telling us everything.

Breeder may begin with an absurd proposition.

It isn't treating the consequences as harmless.

The movie already had its world premiere at Tribeca on June 6, 2026. 

But for general U.S. audiences, it is still waiting.

Independent Film Company brings Breeder to limited theaters October 16, 2026. 

So today, September 12, Friday Night VHS marks it:

COMING SOON.

And that's where we should stop.

Because festival coverage exists.

Reviews exist.

People have seen the movie.

Which means we could easily go much further.

We shouldn't.

For Friday Night VHS, the purpose of What's Screaming Now is to make somebody want to see the movie—not tell them what happens after they sit down.

The setup is enough.

Russell has an idea that could save the bees.

Patti has the money that could make it possible.

She invites him to an isolated ranch.

She makes him an offer.

And then she explains the price.

There's a catch.