Noseeums (2025) FRIGHTFEST Review
Noseeums (2025) FRIGHTFEST Review
When college student Ember (Aleigha Burt) is invited to join her white friends for a fun weekend at the country home of school Queen Bee Abigail (Tabby Getsy), she finds the place unsettling and oddly familiar. Drawn to an unkempt grave in the backwoods, Ember begins to be plagued by buzzing, biting, vicious almost invisible, black bugs known throughout Florida as Noseeums.
Along with this constant irritation, she starts having premonitions of grisly death and bewildering, chilling flashbacks. Soon, the shocking lore of the land becomes clear as restless spirits seek a festering retribution for past crimes, and Ember embraces long overdue vengeful acts.
NOSEEUMS celebrated its World Premiere at FrightFest 2025, and it marks the feature debut for twenty-six-year-old MFA graduate of Florida State University (FSU) College of Motion Picture Arts, Raven Carter. NOSEEUMS is short, sweet and to the point weighing in at just seventy-nine minutes of runtime.
There are elements of both Jordan Peele’s seminal 2017 film GET OUT and CANDYMAN in this tale that explores the loss of black land rights in the contemporary South. There are plenty of ‘boo’ moments to keep the more susceptible viewer on their toes and a there is reasonable body count however I found it all very soft and fluffy feeling, which is not an ideal recommendation for any horror film, but it is watchable and likeable albeit it is just not very scary or horrible.
