A bold new spin on indie horror – and on format
I felt that first frame—and I mean felt. Black‑and‑white. Side‑scroll. It’s like wandering into a pixel‑perfect nightmare from your old cartridge days. Trost isn’t just channeling retro gaming; he’s folding it into the DNA of his horror. This isn’t homage — it’s reinvention.
What’s truly at stake here?
A distressed call from a cruise ship gone silent. And Trost’s agent stepping onto empty decks, where every shadow and distorted corridor crawls with something malevolent. It’s claustrophobic, but in widescreen-loner armour. The trailer drops this July 2, 2025, via Umbrella Entertainment, but its deeper roots are older—premiering at the Nightmares Film Festival in October 2024.
DIY filmmaking meets dream logic
Budget? A lean $20 k. Crew? Just three humans in a single Aussie studio apartment. Post‑production? Final Cut Pro, all practical tricks, “hand‑built digital matte backgrounds” — Trost’s own words. The result: A 68‑minute feature that feels like early video‑game cinema come to haunted life. It’s Frankenstein‑meets‑Mario Bros. But the monster is memory itself.
Method behind the madness
He’s no newcomer to indie ingenuity—this is the filmmaker who brought us The FP series, All Superheroes Must Die, Corona House and more. Here, the format becomes the message: the side‑scroll enforces a single‑axis of dread, a visual constraint that suffocates as much as it mesmerizes.
Subverting nostalgia with terror
There’s a tense beauty in watching that monochrome corridor slowly unravel—pixel perfect at first, then morphing into lurking madness. It’s nostalgia stripped of warmth, turned hollow. Trost isn’t making a game, he’s re‑architecting time; every step forward is also a descent.
So… masterpiece or gimmick?
It’s brilliant. And maybe totally baffling. But isn’t that what indie horror should be? No bloated effects, no marketing speak—just an idea executed so precisely it chills. A cruise ship empty but for your own fear. A side‑scroll that scrolls into a dark heart.
Would I call it essential? No. But is it worth the ticket—or a midnight stream? Hell yes. And I’m half‑terrified the format might catch on. Imagine Nightmare on Elm Street: Side‑Scroller. I’d pay to watch that.
