Horror Comedy Bad Karaoke to Make World Premiere at Tubi FrightFest

A cursed karaoke machine turns a night of singing into a fight for survival in Bad Karaoke.

Bad Karaoke is taking its blood-soaked singalong to Tubi FrightFest, where the horror comedy will make its world premiere on August 30 at the ODEON Luxe West End in London.

The film marks the feature directorial debut of Chris Lightbody and Robert J. Steinmiller Jr. and stars Lexi Underwood (Little Fires Everywhere), Case Walker (The Other Two), and singer Kat Cunning (Trinkets).

https://vimeo.com/1196079042?fl=pl&fe=sh

The setup is simple enough to feel instantly familiar. Wedding band keyboardist Emily discovers an old karaoke machine tucked away in the back of a dive bar and assumes it will be the perfect way to unwind with her bandmates. Instead, the machine turns out to have a very different idea of entertainment.

Once the singing starts, so does the killing.

The group initially believes they have found a way to survive after one strong performance appears to spare a singer from the machine’s wrath. That theory falls apart quickly, sending the band deeper into a night of escalating deaths, bad notes, and increasingly desperate attempts to understand what the machine actually wants.

The directors said the idea came from years of enduring rough karaoke performances and joking about how painful the experience could be.

“We were inspired to make this film after years of painful karaoke performances nearly put us in an early grave,” Lightbody and Steinmiller Jr. said. “We found that many people have had near-death karaoke experiences and we wanted to play with that idea, as well as say something profound about the state of new music. But instead, we made Bad Karaoke.”

The trailer leans into the absurdity of the premise, mixing barroom comedy, supernatural horror, and bloody consequences with the kind of late-night energy that feels tailor-made for a festival crowd.

Karaoke has always had a strange power to bring people together, embarrass them, and convince otherwise reasonable adults to grab a microphone after midnight. Bad Karaoke takes that universal experience and turns it into a survival game where one sour note could be your last.

It is exactly the kind of high-concept genre comedy that should play well with a FrightFest audience.

Bad Karaoke will world premiere at Tubi FrightFest on Sunday, August 30, at the ODEON Luxe West End in London. Let us know what you think of the trailer in the comments.