Dark Sky Films Brings HUMAN to Select Theaters and VOD October 23
Some horror movies begin with a creaking door, a deserted road or a bad decision in the woods. HUMAN starts with something far more contemporary: a woman alone after midnight, exhausted, staring into a screen and looking for a little digital distraction.
Then the night goes completely off the rails.
Dark Sky Films will release HUMAN, the new horror film from director Matt Stuertz, in select theaters and across VOD and digital platforms on October 23, 2026. The film will also receive a West Coast premiere on October 22 at the Laemmle Glendale, with members of the
cast and crew scheduled to attend.
The film follows Dani Ferris, played by Jackie Kelly, during what begins as a quiet late-night stretch away from home. She is exhausted, isolated and looking for a brief escape online. Instead, she gets pulled into a blood-soaked supernatural nightmare where relationships collapse, threats multiply and the night keeps finding new ways to get worse.
Dark Sky describes HUMAN as a single-night thriller built around escalating tension, emotional chaos and an unapologetic amount of bodily fluid. That last part feels worth emphasizing.
The film arrives after festival appearances at FrightFest and Obscura Film Fest, where its mix of psychological instability, practical effects and tonal unpredictability appears to have left an impression.
One Night, No Safe Ground
The central setup gives HUMAN an immediate pressure-cooker quality. Dani remains trapped in a constantly shifting emotional landscape populated by friends, lovers, enemies, weapons, heartbreak and supernatural forces she cannot fully understand.
The official synopsis reads like someone fed a relationship crisis, a midnight panic attack and a supernatural siege into the same blender.
“It’s past midnight and Dani Ferris is all alone. Away from home. Tired as hell.”
From there, the night spirals through love, hate, life, death and what the film describes as “things a hell of a lot more super than natural.”
Stuertz appears to lean hard into instability here, using the compressed timeline to keep Dani moving from one emotional and physical threat to another. The film reportedly embraces abrupt tonal shifts as part of that experience, keeping the audience as unsteady as its protagonist.
From Matt Stuertz, Director of Tonight She Comes
HUMAN was directed and produced by Matt Stuertz, whose previous work includes Tonight She Comes and RWD. David Neiss wrote the screenplay and also serves as a producer alongside David Christopher Pitt.
Jackie Kelly leads the cast as Dani Ferris, joined by Brock Russell, Cecily Dowd, Jeffrey Decker and Mia Sydney.
Kelly has previously appeared in films including Hag, In Memory Of and Oscar Tango Hellwater, while Russell previously worked with Stuertz on Tonight She Comes.
The film runs 107 minutes.
Blood, Body Horror and Late-Night Paranoia
Early critical response has focused heavily on the movie’s unpredictability and practical-effects work. Reviews coming out of its festival run have described the film as relentless, hallucinatory and deliberately uncomfortable, with particular attention paid to its bodily-fluid-heavy effects.
That makes HUMAN sound less interested in politely creeping under your skin and more interested in kicking the door in around 1:17 a.m.
The premise also taps into something distinctly modern. Screens now fill the dead hours when sleep refuses to cooperate. Isolation no longer means silence. You can be completely alone while connected to everyone, and that strange contradiction gives horror filmmakers an enormous playground.
HUMAN appears ready to take that ordinary midnight ritual and turn it into a long, ugly night Dani Ferris will never forget.
Dark Sky Films releases HUMAN in select theaters and on VOD and digital platforms October 23, 2026. The film’s West Coast premiere takes place October 22 at the Laemmle Glendale.
