Human

SHE SHOULD HAVE GONE TO SLEEP

It's past midnight.

The building is quiet.

Everyone else has gone home.

And Dani Ferris is still awake.

She's tired. She's alone. She's away from home. And all she wants is a little distraction before finally getting some sleep.

Her phone seems like the perfect place to find it.

A few messages.

A little flirting.

Maybe reconnecting with someone she hasn't spoken to in a while.

Nothing particularly unusual.

Nothing that should end in blood.

But in Matt Stuertz's Human, a perfectly ordinary late-night habit becomes the beginning of something monstrous.

And Dani is about to have the worst night of her life.

THE WOMAN WHO STAYED BEHIND

Played by Jackie Kelly, Dani is staying alone inside a film studio after hours.

She's working on a production, and the otherwise empty building has become her temporary accommodation.

It's a peculiar place to spend the night.

A studio is designed to create illusions.

Rooms that aren't really rooms.

Homes that aren't really homes.

Places constructed to look familiar without necessarily being safe or comfortable.

But Dani isn't thinking about any of that.

She's thinking about her phone.

Her messages.

Her plans.

And the possibility of a little company.

Then someone starts banging on the door.

Suddenly, the fact that she's alone in an empty film studio doesn't feel quite so convenient.

The film's setup is established in the distributor's publicity and its festival coverage, which also identifies Dani's late-night conversations with a friend and a former romantic partner. 

WHAT'S ON THE OTHER SIDE?

This is where Human begins turning an ordinary situation into a horror movie.

A woman alone.

An unexpected visitor.

A door separating the familiar from the unknown.

It's a setup that could belong to a conventional home-invasion thriller.

But Stuertz isn't making a conventional home-invasion thriller.

The official Dark Sky Films synopsis promises an escalating night involving relationships, violence, bodily horror, and supernatural forces. 

The film's promotional materials deliberately avoid explaining the full nature of Dani's ordeal.

And that's a smart decision.

Because the question isn't simply whether Dani can survive someone breaking into the building.

It's what kind of reality she'll find herself in once the nightmare begins.

The story promises friends and enemies.

Love and hate.

Life and death.

And things far beyond the ordinary.

Whatever Dani encounters, the night refuses to remain within the boundaries of the situation she thought she understood.

THE RETURN OF MATT STUERTZ

Human comes from filmmaker Matt Stuertz, whose earlier horror feature Tonight She Comes established his appetite for outrageous, effects-driven genre filmmaking.

This is a filmmaker comfortable with horror that becomes excessive.

Messy.

Unpredictable.

And deliberately difficult to categorize.

Human continues that approach while building its story around a single exhausted woman.

The film was written by David Neiss, with Stuertz and David Christopher Pitt producing. Pitt also handled cinematography, while Joseph Holiday composed the score. 

That last credit is particularly interesting.

Because Human begins with isolation.

An empty building.

A woman staring at her phone.

The sounds of an ordinary night.

But its festival reception suggests that sound and music become increasingly important as Dani's situation deteriorates.

The score, editing, and physical effects help transform a quiet beginning into something considerably more chaotic.

And the film's practical-effects work is one of the reasons it attracted attention on the festival circuit. 

JACKIE KELLY TAKES CENTER STAGE

For a film built around escalating madness, Human places an enormous amount of responsibility on its lead performer.

Jackie Kelly plays Dani Ferris.

And much of the movie depends on her ability to hold the audience's attention while isolated from the rest of the cast.

That's not an easy assignment.

Especially when the character begins the film doing something as visually ordinary as looking at her phone.

But that ordinary behavior establishes the contrast the movie needs.

Before the supernatural chaos, Dani is recognizable.

She's tired.

She's distracted.

She's human.

The supporting cast includes Jeffrey Decker, Brock Russell, Cecily Dowd, and Mia Sydney. 

The film doesn't need a sprawling ensemble to establish its world.

It needs us to understand Dani.

Because once the nightmare begins, everything is filtered through what happens to her.

A FESTIVAL NIGHTMARE FINALLY REACHES THEATERS

Although Human is receiving its commercial U.S. release in 2026, the movie isn't making its world premiere this October.

It already premiered at FrightFest in London on August 22, 2025.

Its festival screenings generated attention for the combination of supernatural horror, outrageous practical gore, and psychological intensity. 

That explains why reviews of the movie already exist.

It also explains why some databases identify Human as a 2025 film, while Dark Sky Films markets the upcoming theatrical release under 2026.

Neither year necessarily represents an error.

2025 is the festival-premiere year. October 23, 2026 is the U.S. commercial release date.

That's the distinction Friday Night VHS should preserve.

And the commercial release comes through Dark Sky Films, a distributor with a long history in independent and cult horror.

The film is scheduled for select theaters and VOD/digital platforms on October 23. 

So this is not a nationwide studio rollout.

It's a smaller horror release arriving just in time for Halloween.

ONE NIGHT. NO EASY WAY OUT.

There's something particularly effective about horror that begins with an ordinary decision.

Dani didn't go looking for a haunted house.

She didn't summon a demon.

She didn't set out to investigate a supernatural mystery.

She stayed awake.

She picked up her phone.

She answered messages.

And somewhere along the way, the night stopped belonging to her.

That's what makes the premise work.

The gap between what Dani expects and what she encounters is enormous.

A quiet evening becomes an ordeal.

A temporary place to sleep becomes a trap.

And the familiar world begins behaving in ways she cannot explain.

The film's promotional material promises that the experience will involve much more than physical danger.

There are emotional stakes.

Relationships.

Heartbreak.

And questions about what it means to be human in the first place.

But those are things audiences deserve to discover for themselves.

We don't need to reveal the identity of the intruder.

We don't need to explain the supernatural force.

And we certainly don't need to reproduce the film's most outrageous effects sequences before it reaches theaters.

All we need to know is that Dani Ferris wanted to go to bed.

Instead, she gets a night she will never forget.

Some nights are better left unread.

Some doors are better left unanswered.

And sometimes—

you really should have just gone to sleep.