Chattanooga Film Fest 2025 Review: Alan at Night

Roommate horror turns hilariously unhinged as Alan’s nightly habits spiral into chaos.

Alan at Night – Sleepwalking Into Found Footage Madness

★★★☆☆ (3 out of 5)

By Travis Brown

Found footage horror gets a hilarious, herpetological twist in Jesse Swenson's Alan at Night—a mockumentary-style descent into roommate hell, complete with sleepwalking destruction, cold-cut chaos, and unsettling night behavior that goes from quirky to terrifying real fast.

The film follows Jay (Joseph Basquill), one half of a broke prank YouTube duo, who’s forced to find a new roommate after parting ways with his longtime content partner. Enter Alan (Chris Ash), an awkward, soft-spoken herpetologist whose nighttime habits become increasingly bizarre. At first, it’s sleepwalking. Then it’s fridge raiding. Then it’s something way darker.

Swenson keeps the tone bouncy in the beginning, playing off Alan’s oddball energy for laughs. The film toys with our expectations by grounding the horror in something mundane—sleep disorders—and then escalating it into something way more chaotic. It plays in the same sandbox as Jason Yu’s Sleep or Creep, but with a heavier lean into awkward humor and social discomfort.

The cast commits, especially Ash as the title weirdo, who walks a fine line between unsettling and weirdly endearing. As tensions rise, Alan at Night gets messier (in a good way), spiraling into found footage insanity. Hijinks turn into Hikikomori hermit energy. Podcast hosts and girlfriends get roped into the unraveling. By the time the final act hits, the film has fully transformed from oddball comedy into chaotic horror ride—and it works.

Is it a bit ridiculous that characters constantly have cameras rolling? Of course. But Alan at Night plays the format for laughs just as much as scares, and it understands the genre well enough to deliver both.

Final Score: 3 out of 5.

A bizarre, smartly paced mix of Creep, Paranormal Activity, and prank-bro burnout. Alan at Night is funny, freaky, and surprisingly fresh—one of the more entertaining surprises from #CFF2025.