Sour Minnows (2026)
Screening as part of the 2026 Fantasia Film Festival, Harrison Atkins' Sour Minnows is an experiment in the uncanny. Walking home from the store, roommates Ricky (David Brown) and Tepper (Chase Williamson) stumble onto a group of people bent over licking the pavement. Suddenly, Ricky finds himself home, not sure of what happened and with no memory of what he witnessed. Tepper fills him in, and the pair continue thinking little of the strange event. However, this is only the first strange event of many as the walls of reality begin to disintegrate around them, with increasingly odd behaviors and situations being found.
At its best, Sour Minnows effectively creates a sense of uncanny horror. While the situations that Ricky finds himself in are rarely overly flashy, the behavior of those around him grows increasingly alien, just enough to make it clear that something is wrong. The film takes full advantage of the frame, creating some striking visuals and moments of editing to bring these oddities to life. There is something perfectly uncomfortable and offsetting about these sequences, creating a raw sense of unnervousness that isn't easy to achieve. The film can be a visceral experience with Atkins writing some quite clever moments.
However, these moments, while effective, do feel somewhat limited in substance. The best films that play with absurdity do so with a deeper core that the weirdness is built around, allowing the audience to have a tether to strengthen their ability to engage with the work. That tether can be an emotional expression, such as the emotions of finding one's authentic self in Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw the TV Glow, or digestible lore such as the demonology of Osgood Perkins' Longlegs. Without this core, the random weirdness of a film can only do so much to keep the audience focused for an entire feature runtime. While there is lore to the events in Sour Minnows, answers remain largely vague, and the film fails to provide the audience with enough to keep their attention. The endless randomness grows tiresome over the film's 83-minute runtime, and noticeably well-crafted sequences begin to lose their impact.
The performances do their best to make up for this, with both Brown and Williamson playing well as two performers who are slowly losing their minds and becoming increasingly haunted by it. Ricky's girlfriend, Aura (Suzanna Son), also provides a needed outsider dynamic to what the roommates are going through, but the majority of her best work comes toward the film's conclusion when momentum has already been lost.
Because of this, Sour Minnows is a difficult film to fully digest. While it is clear that there is talent from those involved in creating setting and quiet horror elements, the next step of translating these sequences into a feature production feels lacking. For someone who completely vibes with the tone of the film, it is easy to imagine this issue would evaporate as the energy would be just tilted enough to capture their attention, but for anyone who needs a deeper layer of engagement, Sour Minnows struggles to deliver
At its best, Sour Minnows effectively creates a sense of uncanny horror. While the situations that Ricky finds himself in are rarely overly flashy, the behavior of those around him grows increasingly alien, just enough to make it clear that something is wrong. The film takes full advantage of the frame, creating some striking visuals and moments of editing to bring these oddities to life. There is something perfectly uncomfortable and offsetting about these sequences, creating a raw sense of unnervousness that isn't easy to achieve. The film can be a visceral experience with Atkins writing some quite clever moments.
However, these moments, while effective, do feel somewhat limited in substance. The best films that play with absurdity do so with a deeper core that the weirdness is built around, allowing the audience to have a tether to strengthen their ability to engage with the work. That tether can be an emotional expression, such as the emotions of finding one's authentic self in Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw the TV Glow, or digestible lore such as the demonology of Osgood Perkins' Longlegs. Without this core, the random weirdness of a film can only do so much to keep the audience focused for an entire feature runtime. While there is lore to the events in Sour Minnows, answers remain largely vague, and the film fails to provide the audience with enough to keep their attention. The endless randomness grows tiresome over the film's 83-minute runtime, and noticeably well-crafted sequences begin to lose their impact.
The performances do their best to make up for this, with both Brown and Williamson playing well as two performers who are slowly losing their minds and becoming increasingly haunted by it. Ricky's girlfriend, Aura (Suzanna Son), also provides a needed outsider dynamic to what the roommates are going through, but the majority of her best work comes toward the film's conclusion when momentum has already been lost.
Because of this, Sour Minnows is a difficult film to fully digest. While it is clear that there is talent from those involved in creating setting and quiet horror elements, the next step of translating these sequences into a feature production feels lacking. For someone who completely vibes with the tone of the film, it is easy to imagine this issue would evaporate as the energy would be just tilted enough to capture their attention, but for anyone who needs a deeper layer of engagement, Sour Minnows struggles to deliver