You Can't Talk To The Dude
2025 · 15m · USA
Directed by Lucas Murphy
Genres: dark comedy, horror, surrealism
Tones: absurdist, dark, darkly comic
After moving into a newly renovated apartment, Rory's life falls apart when a mysterious man appears in his home out of thin air and simply refuses to leave.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A debut film where the entire horror premise is just 'a dude appears and you can't talk to him' — the title alone is a formal argument, and the Kafkaesque proceduralism is exactly the right execution.
Buñuelian exterminating-angel logic applied to gentrification anxiety — a stranger who simply appears in your home and cannot be made to leave, played with procedural deadpan. Sonny Valicenti is the right actor for that calibration; the conceit has genuine teeth.
Sonny Valicenti carrying a deadpan-procedural take on the un-removable houseguest — the page makes a real case that the gentrification subtext is doing the work under the absurdist surface. I'm in for fifteen minutes of that energy.
Festivals
- Raindance Film Festival 2025