Robbie Ain't Right No More
2023 · 18m · USA
Directed by Kyle Perritt
After her older brother Robbie returns from war cold and distant, young Sarah refuses to let him slip away — and discovers he has brought something horrific home with him.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise alone—PTSD as literal cosmic horror, a Marine director weaponizing sci-fi tropes to say what therapy can't—should feel gimmicky, but Perritt refuses to wink at the audience, and that refusal is exactly what makes it work.
Perritt situates himself deliberately in the lineage of body horror and homecoming trauma (Cronenberg, The Fly, echoes of Tarkovsky's spiritual dislocation), but the formal rigor here is in the restraint—what he doesn't show us becomes the film's thematic spine.
The decision to shoot the brother's dissolution in tight, claustrophobic framings rather than reveal the 'thing' outright—keeping us locked in Sarah's bewildered perspective—transforms a modest budget into something claustrophobic and genuinely unsettling, and it's what separates this from a hundred other homecoming-horror shorts.
Reviews
A very effective horror film that is also a good analogy for war and PTSD.
Overall, it's a gritty, watch-worthy horror film.
Festivals
- Screamfest Horror Film Festival 2023
- Telluride Horror Show 2023
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2024