THE NICE ONES Brings Cosmic Dread and Weaponized Kindness On Demand September 29
THE NICE ONES Asks What Happens When Everyone Around You Becomes a Little Too Nice
Peter Stylianou’s psychological horror-thriller turns kindness into something deeply unsettling when a countryside retreat begins changing everyone except one woman.
There are plenty of horror movies built around the terrifying realization that the people around you have changed. THE NICE ONES takes that familiar nightmare and gives it a deceptively pleasant face.
Writer-director Peter Stylianou brings psychological paranoia, cosmic dread and science-fiction horror together in THE NICE ONES, arriving On Demand September 29, 2026, from Level 33 Entertainment.
The film follows Kate, played by Joelle Rae (“The Witcher,” Christmas in Notting Hill), as she joins her boyfriend and his friends at a remote countryside retreat. Old wounds already simmer beneath the surface when strange lights begin appearing in the sky. Then the people around Kate start changing.
They become calmer. More agreeable. Kinder.
A little too kind.
As the transformation spreads through the group, Kate becomes convinced that something has happened to them. Her friends increasingly dismiss her suspicions as instability, leaving her trapped between two possibilities: she is losing her grip on reality, or she remains the only person who can see what everyone else has become.
That setup places THE NICE ONES in familiar body-snatcher territory, though Stylianou pushes the concept toward something more spiritually unnerving. The film plays with the idea of “false light” — entities or forces that present themselves as benevolent, enlightened and righteous while committing disturbing acts in service of what they believe represents a greater good.
Stylianou cites John Carpenter’s The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers among the film’s inspirations. The DNA makes sense. Both films turn trust itself into a pressure chamber. THE NICE ONES approaches that same existential anxiety through a different doorway: what if the clearest sign that something has gone horribly wrong is that everyone suddenly seems happier, calmer and impossibly nice?
There is something wonderfully sinister about that premise. Horror traditionally teaches us to watch the shadows, listen for footsteps and distrust the stranger standing at the end of the hallway. Here, the threat smiles back.
Alongside Rae, the ensemble includes Emrhys Cooper (Nosferatu), Ayvianna Snow (How to Kill Monsters, Bogieville), Nick Lavelle (“Never Let Me Go”), Daniela Norman (“Tiny Pretty Things”), Andrew Lyle-Pinnock (Drained), Tom Kelsey (My Bloody Galentine), James Akka (“The Sandman”), Ian Whyte (Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, “Game of Thrones”) and Donna Preston (“The Sandman,” Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald).
Stylianou filmed THE NICE ONES in Kent over 19 days, with much of the story unfolding inside a single large house. That contained setting gives the psychological pressure room to tighten as Kate finds fewer places to retreat and fewer people she can trust.
Stylianou also produced the film alongside Andreas Olavarria, Taryn Procsal and Tony Currier.
Running 89 minutes, THE NICE ONES mixes horror, science fiction, psychological thriller and drama into a story where kindness itself starts feeling like a warning sign.
THE NICE ONES arrives On Demand September 29, 2026, from Level 33 Entertainment.
Stay scary.
