FlyTrapper (PANIC) is a Strange Mumbelgore Examination of Friendship

Title: FlyTrapper

First Non-Festival Release: TBD

Director: Drew Britton

Writer: Drew Britton, Georgia Lee King

Runtime: 74 Minutes

Starring: Georgia Lee King, Leah Piescinski, Michael Bleck

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 2026.

You’d do anything for your best friend, right? The deep bonds of loyalty can make people do many strange and out-of-character things. Depending on how deep in trouble they are, there’s always this pull to help out a friend when they need you.

For Melonie (Leah Piescinski), she’s had her ups and downs with her estranged best friend Crystal (Georgie Lee King). Crystal is unafraid to be herself. She loves rapping, riding jet skis, and murdering people whenever it crosses her fancy. When Melonie drives up to visit her out of the blue, she claims she does so out of concern for Crystal’s safety, given all the news reports of homicide in the area. Her true intentions lead to a revelatory climax of their friendship.

Mumbelgore with fine production values, FlyTrapper sleepwalks through its friendship horror story.

Unconcerned with story progression or pacing, FlyTrapper opts for a more true-to-life take on friendship horror. The murders in the area serve as an easy reason for Melonie to check up on Crystal. This isn’t what FlyTrapper latches onto story-wise though. Instead, Melonie’s secret intentions are what drives the film further, implying that she knows more about what is going on that she appears. This is always in the back of the mind of FlyTrapper through each studio session and jet-ski outing. Melonie knows exactly what Crystal is up to and the audience clearly understands too. The unveiling becomes a forgone destination, sucking up all the suspense that could come with its story. Disjointed in story structure, the indie horror film opts to focus on the relationship between Crystal and Melonie.

Melonie and Crystal’s relationship is storied, with years of history between them. Unfortunately, not much is gleaned from their characters. Opposites to a stunning degree, it’s interesting to hypothesize just how the two came to be. Crystal is outgoing, confident, and ambitious while Melonie is permissive, introverted, and hesitant. They foil each other well, but the substance of their friendship never really surfaces. Their willingness to go out of their way for each other marks a deeper relationship that never makes it to the screen. Together, their antics don’t make for interesting character choices but do present a boring answer for the question how far someone would go for a friend.

The heart of the film, Georgia Lee King’s performance as Crystal is the glue that keeps this indie horror from going completely off the rails. FlyTrapper’s commitment to Crystal’s batshit crazy life only works with an equally bold performance. King is up for the challenge. Marrying all the strange, psychotic, and compelling parts of Crystal, King crafts a fascinating character who is difficult to like but impossible to ignore when onscreen. While her overall motivations may be simple, it’s the execution that makes Crystal. Loud, boorish, and unaware, or uninterested, in social situations outside her control, Crystal is also creative, resourceful, and caring, in her own weird way. This only translates well because of King’s commitment.

The horror of FlyTrapper is mostly ineffective. Relying on shock value from either Crystal’s wild words or actions, her talents as a serial killer are borne mostly from luck and surprise. She gets one over on her victims solely based on the fact that her tunnel vision compels her to commit the acts of violence whenever it crosses her mind. Without a sense of timing or staging, the violence of FlyTrapper easily falls into this forgone pattern. Lacking suspense and thrills, the hyper-stylized violence feels limp against the flashier elements of FlyTrapper.

Not a particularly straightforward film, FlyTrapper is a slice-of-life horror that seeks to dissect the ways in which friendships enable and strain. Its mumblegore approach to building tension and its central relationship may be interesting on the surface but it does crumble under the pressure as a feature. A strong performance by King and solid production values keeps FlyTrapper steady while its meandering story works against its already lean runtime. A sun-drenched psychological horror, FlyTrapper works for those that are already on its incredibly specific wavelength.

Overall Score? 4/10