Beautiful Dystopic Sci-Fi Horror Psyche (PANIC) Gets Lost in Existentialism

Title: Psyche

First Non-Festival Release: TBD

Director: Stephon Stewart

Writer: Gibran Lozano, Stephon Stewart

Runtime: 71 Minutes

Starring: Sarah Ritter, Eva Ariel Binder, Rodrigo Varandas

Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here

This film’s review was written after its screening at the Panic Film Festival in 2025.

Humans have been searching for the meaning of life as long as we have existed. The journey has brought people to the ends of the earth, into battle, and to their knees. This seemingly impossible task has inspired the best and worst of humanity, and yet the answers are still far out of grasp.

Traversing a barren desert landscape with nothing but a computer (Gibran Lozano), Mara (Sarah Ritter) must follow its advice to break free while playing a cryptic video game that asks her to walk great distances to checkpoints. As she wanders through the levels, Mara is plagued by a sense of hopelessness that shows every time her attempts to communicate to the outside world are thwarted. Between that and the creatures hunting her at night, Mara has enough on her mind.

Pseudo-intellectual Psyche meanders in its bloated runtime to convey its simple message.

Its promising setup offers many vantage points for Psyche to jump off before it finds its groove of slow-burn sci-fi horror. The mystery of Mara’s upheaval and the objective of the game she is playing makes for a decently intriguing setup. Unfortunately, much of the story beats get spoon-fed to the audience as she travels across the barren terrain. From explaining the rules and various dangers to the overly sappy voice over monologues, Psyche plays it safe and straight in telling Mara’s tale. It’s not bad, per se, but it feels familiar to similar single-person epics told in the sub-genre.

Oftentimes forgetting its video-game conceit, Psyche meanders in its storytelling, preferring to follow Sarah Ritter’s emotionally tormented Mara. Throughout her journey, Mara is expected to complete various checkpoints and adhere to whatever the computer program tells her to do. As it goes on, however, her main source of conflict comes from the disembodied voice of a man promising her salvation by not listening to the computer. From this point on Psyche maintains tension in this dynamic, which makes the story feel uneven at best.

Ritter’s performance is adequate for what is asked of her, but she is given the difficult task of lifting the film’s more emotional side, which is hit-or-miss. Clearly capable of expressing bigger emotions, Ritter struggles with the more mundane elements of Psyche. With only a computer and an unknown voice to communicate with, her physicality and emotions are put to the test. As Psyche goes on, it feels less and less like Mara is thrust into a dystopian test for survival and more like Ritter is in a series of trippy visuals and simply reacting to them.

The one thing going for Psyche is its low-fi otherworldly feel, which is borne directly from its desert cinematography and interesting editing choices. At times feeling more like a video game than a movie, Psyche channels its apocalyptic energy well, making everything feel more monumental than it looks. The desert is as empty and barren as one would expect, the Sun beating down on Mara like a scorching, omnipotent force. The moments when she completes challenges feel dangerous and disorienting, adding to the film’s overall charm and effect. Every now and then the visuals will dip into something out of left-field, but Psyche will course-correct soon afterwards.

Far from the worst sci-fi horror offering out there, Psyche suffers only in its ambitions outweighing its realities. Its real-life video game premise and beautiful low-budget visuals give its story just enough credence as a Bonafide sci-fi horror adventure. Some questionable acting moments, flat characterization, and memory lapses balance out the feature to make it an alright watch. It’s always exciting to see indie films get made with a clear direction, even if it doesn’t hit. Psyche may or may not be up your alley, but the question of whether it is worth your time, much like life, is up to you.

Overall Score? 5/10