A Nightmare on Elm Street Meets the Internet in Riveting Supernatural Slasher Monitor (SXSW)

Title: Monitor

First Non-Festival Release: TBD

Director: Matt Black, Ryan Polly

Writer: Matt Black, Ryan Polly

Runtime: 88 Minutes

Starring: Brittany O’Grady, Ines Høysæter Asseron, Taz Skylar

Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here

This film’s review was written after its screening at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2026.

With technology evolving at such a rapid rate, it can be easy to feel confused or fearful at the prospects of how life will actually change for a given device or product. There are real world consequences for what comes from the digital space. Generative AI gobbles up and poisons drinking water meant for humans and other creatures, real-life gore and snuff films get uploaded to social media websites, and revenge porn makes suicide seem like the only option, especially for vulnerable teenagers. The horror is already here.

Monitor steps into the world of content moderation to get a closer look at that evil. Maggie (Brittany O’Grady) is a content moderator grinding away her life to fill the hole in her heart left by her sister Tori’s suicide. When a particularly unsettling video comes across Maggie’s desk, she decides to block it. While it doesn’t violate any explicit terms, Maggie wants to stop a little evil from getting out in the world. She has no idea how unintentionally correct her assessment is when a sinister entity emerges from the video and starts attacking everyone on the team who bares witness.

A delicious slice of tech horror, Monitor is a supernatural slasher that opines brilliantly on the modern desire to denounce all technology.

How can you believe what you’re seeing onscreen is real, and would it matter anyway if it was or wasn’t? In an age of online misinformation, the idea that believing in something so much that it kills you is an unfortunately timely response to modern technology. In Monitor, the hapless group of low-wage workers fight against an entity, a tulpa, that emerges from the digital world. It requires intense belief and fear for it to manifest, and once it is integrated into real life it can begin causing near-irreversible havoc on everything it touches.

Monitor makes a case that its central antagonist is an allegory for the ways in which technology can destroy us. And what’s at the center of the conversation now? Generative AI.

Its central conflict doesn’t boil down to the terror promised by the entity. Monitor is about refusing to post something harmful online and all of the obstacles in place to preventing true justice or protection. Deftly baked into its premise, the morality of the action is prioritized over the lore, or even function of its defeat. Offering different perspectives on the utility and responsibility of the content moderators, Monitor serves as a call to action that some things matter more than any individual.

The concept of pursuing a higher calling is repeated throughout Monitor, most often as a refrain for Maggie to justify her refusal to quit her job and give up on blocking the video from being published. It’s Maggie’s steadfast refusal to abandon her morals and belief in making the world a better place that drives her to push her team to do the right thing. The dynamics that emerge amongst the team color Monitor’s statement even further by pitting the ideologies against each other once the stakes elevate uncontrollably for the team.

Brittany O’Grady makes for a unique final girl in Maggie. While still saddled with the typical goody goody mentality and need to save others, there is depth to her crusade for online safety. Maggie moves with more clarity than her peers. While they point out the entity’s demands and its promise of safety in exchange for visibility, Maggie correctly assesses the legitimacy of its claims. Combatting misinformation takes discernment, and Maggie lays her case using logical deduction and appeals to the greater good. O’Grady does this without making Maggie condescending, weak, or sanctimonious, nailing the tonal balance to make her quest defendable.  Instead, Maggie is a flawed and scared person trying to do the best with what’s been given to her: much like many people forced to work with and use technology that harms us all.

The biggest joy of Monitor arises from its impressive array of scares. Honoring a respectable balance between well-timed jump scares, unbearable tension, and truly upsetting imagery, this entity means business. Monitor gives its tulpa plenty of bite, unafraid to get wickedly creative and forceful in its quest to scare. There’s a wild amount of creativity that goes into these set pieces, and it pays off significantly when the technological house of horrors is entirely constructed.

A smart, dense supernatural slasher, Monitor crafts an impressive tale wrapped in as much insightful commentary as it is in wicked kills. Commenting on the various ways we let technology drain the life out of us, Monitor wastes no opportunity to maximize the tension out of its terrifying premise. A beyond commendable feature debut, if Monitor is any indication of their talent, Matthew Black and Ryan Polly have great careers ahead of them in the genre space.

Overall Score? 8/10