SXSW 2026 Review: Dead Eyes Revives the Raw Terror of Found-Footage Horror

Ana Thu Nguyen and Rijen Laine venture into the woods in the immersive POV horror film Dead Eyes.

SXSW 2026 Review: Dead Eyes Brings Found-Footage Horror Back to Its Terrifying Roots

Found-footage horror has been around long enough now that it has its own traditions, rules, and expectations. What once felt revolutionary when The Blair Witch Project shattered audiences in the late ’90s has since evolved into an entire subgenre with its own visual language and storytelling rhythms.

So the question filmmakers now face isn’t whether they can reinvent the form—but whether they can still capture the raw tension that made it work in the first place.

With Dead Eyes, Australian filmmaker Richard E. Williams proves that sometimes sticking close to the roots of the genre can still be incredibly effective.

Premiering at the SXSW Film Festival in the Visions lineup, the film embraces the classic found-footage formula while pushing it further into a fully immersive first-person experience. The result is a horror film that feels both familiar and surprisingly refreshing.

The story follows Sean (Rijen Laine) and his girlfriend Grace (Ana Thu Nguyen) as they venture deep into a remote forest searching for Sean’s missing father. What begins as a tense but grounded investigation soon spirals into a supernatural nightmare lurking somewhere in the wilderness.

Williams frames the entire film through a POV lens, giving the audience the unsettling sensation of experiencing the terror directly alongside the characters. While POV storytelling isn’t entirely new to horror, Dead Eyes uses the technique with confidence, especially during its extended nighttime sequences.

Flashlights become the primary source of illumination, and the limited visibility amplifies the dread in ways that feel organic rather than gimmicky.

The film’s narrative is intentionally loose, leaning more into atmosphere and spectacle than intricate plotting. In some cases that looseness works against the film, as the central mystery never fully anchors the emotional stakes as strongly as it could.

But where Dead Eyes truly shines is in its execution.

Nguyen’s Grace becomes a particularly engaging presence within the chaos. While Sean is emotionally driven by the search for his father, Grace functions as both a grounded voice of reason and an instigator—pushing deeper into uncomfortable territory and forcing the group to confront what may actually be waiting for them in the woods.

The second half of the film is where Williams’ vision really comes alive.

As the forest closes in and the supernatural threat becomes more tangible, the film escalates into a nerve-shredding descent filled with unsettling camera angles, creeping dread, and the kind of primal tension that made early found-footage horror so effective.

It’s a reminder that simplicity—when handled well—can still be terrifying.

Australian genre filmmakers have long maintained a strong connection to horror’s roots, from grindhouse-inspired exploitation cinema to modern cult hits like Wolf Creek. Dead Eyes continues that lineage, delivering a solid and confident entry into the modern found-footage landscape.

While it may not completely reinvent the subgenre, it doesn’t need to. Instead, it taps into the core reason audiences fell in love with found-footage horror in the first place: the feeling that you’re right there in the middle of something you shouldn’t be witnessing.

And by the time the film reaches its terrifying final act, that illusion is hard to shake.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

For fans of POV horror and stripped-down supernatural thrillers, Dead Eyes stands as one of the stronger genre entries to emerge from SXSW this year—and a reminder that the found-footage formula still has plenty of life left in it.