Running Time: 83 Minutes
Starring: Jack Redmayne, Alyth Ross, Os Leanse, Dashiell Upton, Isobel Laidler, Mat Wright, Heidi Parsons, Mike Mackenzie, Jason Hogan, Oliver Woolf, Ted Roland
With the abundance of films that are released each year, particularly during festival season, what helps is for a film to have something to set it apart from its counterparts. What helps garner attention is a distinctive visual style, something which is evident in The Peril at Pincer Point, from co-writers/directors Jake Kuhn and Noah Stratton-Twine. As a sunrise looms over London, the city view is captured in a black-and-white vision while the aspect ratio offers a confined feel. This is just the start of a strange journey for sound engineer Jim Baitte (Jack Redmayne), who finds a crab in his thirtieth floor flat.
He then faces a tough time at work, as Jim is reprimanded for reusing his previous work for sound on a new film. This is not what was wanted by celebrated yet tyrannical director, P.W. Griffith (Os Leanse), who orders that new sound be recorded at Pincer Point. As a last chance to redeem himself, Jim travels to Pincer Point in the hopes of finding the inspiration that will elevate the film's climactic finale. However, his time on the remote island involves being caught up in strange customs and a bewildering folklore, leaving reality to blur with fiction.
What has been crafted is an unabashedly inventive piece of work, with handcrafted aesthetics that are wondrous to behold. Whether it is how the background can resemble a painting, or the stunning use of what few colours the film contains, the visuals are terrifically realised. Considering the subject matter, it is also worth noting that the sound design is excellent, drawing viewers into the dreamlike setting which occupies the screen. Amidst a style that feels home-grown, it looks and sounds particularly haunting. It shows a resourcefulness which proves triumphant, especially when compared to bigger-budget alternatives.
It is also full of charm, aided by a good sense of humour. The small-town absurdity will leave you smiling with ease, particularly a physical superstition about being snipped by a crab. What's more chilling is the treatment of missing residents as an everyday occurrence. It adds to the underlying creepiness in this location where crabs can be the size of dogs, a voice speaks through the sound equipment, and a mythology arises regarding a boat captain.
From early on, it's clear that job satisfaction is not what Jim is experiencing. That may be due to his overbearing bosses, whose choice put-downs include calling him pathetic for looking like he has never been on a ferry before. Whatever the reason, he is in need of a reinvention that will pull him out of his funk, and encourage him to wear a t-shirt of something other than Frogopolis, the in-universe film that he previously worked on. That does not stop Jim from repeatedly saying that he is from "the industry", putting on a confident façade by name-dropping as though others should be amazed.
With this last chance, Jim is intent on doing the job well, and becomes determined to get the required sounds by experimenting. But while his ambition rises during his time at Pincer Point, this may be his undoing. Warnings arise wherever he goes, even from those who are putting their very souls at risk to alert the sound engineer. Despite these fantastical moments, he does not take it seriously, willingly moving closer to his doom in order to achieve the end goal that he desires.
But then, isn't that the very essence of filmmaking? To put the art that you desire on the screen, you have to bare what your soul contains and put your entire self at risk. While many creatives push themselves to their emotional, financial, and even physical limits, Jim is going that one step further by putting his soul at risk. What Kuhn and Stratton-Twine have captured is the all-consuming desire to create something great, instead of living a life in dreams of such an achievement.
Through its soul-stealing captain, masses of crabs, and entertaining locals, The Peril at Pincer Point is a bizarro delight. An eccentric love-letter to filmmaking that resembles if The Wicker Man had a baby with Hundreds of Beavers (a sentence that will sound wrong out of context).
The Peril at Pincer Point made its Canadian Premiere at Fantasia Festival 2026. It will also make its English Premiere at FrightFest 2026.
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