A Grim Tale: Fill-Up's Funhouse (Episode 2)
2025 · 24m · Australia
Directed by Jake Frazer
Genres: fantasy, horror, thriller
Weeks after defeating the Cult of Balor, Mila and Jason are pulled inside a cursed children's TV show — a demonic funhouse maze of riddles, ghosts, and possessed puppets.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A sequel that doubles down on horror-comedy pastiche by weaponizing children's TV aesthetics — possessed puppets and riddle-box mazes aren't new, but filtering them through the specific uncanniness of daytime broadcast is exactly the kind of tonal alchemy that makes other scouts squirm while you're quietly vindicated.
The formal constraint of the funhouse-as-narrative-maze shows disciplined visual planning, though the episode-two status raises questions about whether this functions as a standalone composition or relies too heavily on prior installment context for full interpretive weight.
Frazer's decision to weaponize the bland, familiar vocal cadence and visual grammar of actual children's programming creates an immediate uncanniness that no amount of budget could buy — it's the tonal friction between source and subversion that makes the scares land.
Festivals
- Spooktacular Film Fest for Horror & Sci-Fi, Official Selection