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Title: It Hunts (2026) Director: Gabriel Black Writer: Gabriel Black Studio: Rain of Fire Productions // Indie Rights IMDb Plot: An aimless nightcrawler races to unravel the mystery of the supernatural entity hunting him. Joe Says: A movie with a genuine visual personality and a strong sense of atmosphere, even if the narrative may occasionally lose the trail.

It Hunts is an indie horror movie that announces itself with style. Neon-soaked lighting. A sizzling synthwave score. Dreamlike imagery. Ghosts, nightmares, dead-eyed women, and enough existential dread to make a graveyard shift at a call center seem downright cheerful.

Writer-director Gabriel Black clearly has an eye for the frame. This is a beautifully shot micro-budget thriller, and Black gets a surprising amount of atmosphere out of the South Florida locations. The bright LED lighting and colors give the movie a slick, almost dream-state quality, while the synthwave soundtrack keeps things humming underneath.

At the center is Casey (Izzy Martinez), a night-shift worker whose life has settled into a rut. His job is dead-end, his relationship with Alex (Katlin Svadbik) is fraying, and his sleep is being invaded by disturbing visions. Flaming tires. Murders. Suicides. Strange women. Ghosts. A Grim Reaper-looking dude who probably isn’t there to discuss 401(k) options. And somewhere in the middle of all this, something supernatural appears to be hunting him.

It Hunts gets a little tangled up in the telling. Black has a lot to explore: Casey’s trauma, his deteriorating relationship with Alex, his visions, his mental state, and the supernatural mystery lurking behind it all. The result can feel choppy, with some scenes landing beautifully before the story abruptly wanders down another alley or across a Florida highway. There are certainly moments when the movie feels like it is more interested in looking cool than moving the story forward. 

This is where co-star Katlin Svadbik deserves some attention. As Alex, she gives the movie much of its emotional grounding. Casey spends a lot of time staring into the abyss, but Alex is the person standing beside him. Svadbik gives that relationship a believable sadness and makes Casey feel less like a mopey horror protagonist and more like someone genuinely slipping away from the person who loves him.

Martinez also commits to the role, particularly in the quieter moments where Casey’s exhaustion and paranoia begin to bleed together. Black seems more interested in what is happening inside Casey’s head than in delivering a conventional scare machine, and that gives It Hunts a little more character than the average micro-budget supernatural thriller.

For a micro-budget indie, Black has created a movie with a genuine visual personality, a strong sense of atmosphere, and enough strange ideas to raise questions about what is coming next. The narrative may occasionally lose the trail, but Black is clearly making this movie for the love of making movies, and that passion is visible in every carefully composed shot, every splash of neon and every beat of that synthwave score.

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It Hunts is available on Amazon Prime