Daddy is a Hunter
2025 · 8m · United States
Directed by Marcus Fahey
Genres: drama, horror, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
A school counselor meets with a troubled student where he learns about the boy's intense at-home life, his father's late night desertions, and a monstrous secret beneath it all.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The counselor-as-witness angle could've been another tired trauma-disclosure scene, but Fahey actually subverts it—the 'monstrous secret' arrives not as jump scare but as a slow metaphysical dread, which is refreshingly unglamorous for horror.
Structurally anchored in the intimate confessional space of the counselor's office, the film builds its horror through restraint and negative space, positioning itself against the maximalist excess that dominates contemporary genre work.
The entire film pivots on the decision to keep the camera locked on the counselor's face during the revelation—his micro-expressions carrying all the weight while the boy's voice continues—and that single compositional choice transforms what could've been melodrama into something genuinely unsettling on an 8-minute budget.
Reviews
Forgiveness is a frightening, often bold act for any of us. I wanted to make a movie that dealt with those themes of understanding and empathy, but for a broken, "dirty" character.