Jimmy and Stiggs

There are low budget films and then there is this: four years of shooting in snatches, around a hundred days of work spread across them and almost all of it filmed in the director's own Los Angeles flat. Joe Begos, who already had 'Bliss' and 'Christmas Bloody Christmas' behind him, writes, directs, produces, handles the production design and puts himself in front of the camera on 'Jimmy and Stiggs', the first film released by Eli Roth's label.

Jimmy Lang is a filmmaker whose work dried up a while back. One night he takes everything within reach, passes out in front of the news and wakes up certain that aliens took him and are coming back for seconds. So he rings Stiggs Randolph, the friend he fell out with, who is six months sober and has no appetite for any of this. He turns up at the flat anyway.

What follows happens almost entirely inside four walls: two men arguing, drinking and fortifying the place against a siege that may or may not be real. Begos shot it on 16mm and 8mm, used practical effects and gallons of fluorescent paint for the alien blood, and opens with several minutes of first-person camera. Underneath the splatter there's something else going on, though: a male friendship that broke years ago and an argument nobody ever finished.

The cast is tiny. Alongside Begos are Matt Mercer as Stiggs, Riley Dandy and James Russo, and much of the running time rests on two actors alone in an apartment. Josh Ethier edited and produced it with Begos through their Channel 83 Films, while Nicholas McCarthy and Roth are executive producers.

'Jimmy and Stiggs' premiered at Beyond Fest on 4 October 2024 and played Sitges the same autumn. Before it reached American screens, Begos took it round twelve cities with free midnight shows, and in August 2025 it opened on roughly six hundred of them. British audiences got it on 16 February 2026, after it made its international debut at FrightFest in London. Reviews split down the middle, between those who loved the craft and those who tired of the shouting. One more thing: the Argentine remake rights were optioned in 2026.

• Horror
• Science fiction