Steak Dinner
2025 · 8m · United States
Directed by Nathan Mark Ginter
Genres: dark comedy, fantasy, LGBTQ+
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, tense
Casey's attempted surprise dinner date gets derailed when Taylor, her girlfriend, reveals she has brought home a strange, wounded creature she intends to nurse back to health.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A dinner-date setup that could've been straight-to-Netflix mush instead pivots into something genuinely unhinged — the wounded creature becomes the third rail nobody wants to name, and the film has the nerve to let the absurdity sit there, refusing easy resolution. This is the kind of premise that makes other scouts uncomfortable, which means it's probably doing something right.
Ginter demonstrates assured control over tone, threading dark comedy and genuine menace through a domestic space that recalls the queasy formalism of films like *Eating Raoul*, where the personal and the grotesque refuse to separate cleanly. The editing discipline—knowing when to hold on discomfort rather than cut away—places this in conversation with a particular lineage of relationship horror.
The entire film hinges on whether we believe Taylor's casual acceptance of this creature, and whatever choice Ginter made in her performance—that micro-beat of justification or obliviousness—is what transforms a two-person conflict into something genuinely strange and low-budget ingenious.
Festivals
- Overlook Film Festival 2026
- HollyShorts Film Festival (Official Selection) 2025