Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival 2026 - Preview

PHILADELPHIA UNNAMED FILM FESTIVAL 2026
The Festival’s 11th Year Celebrates Camp in Multiple Ways!

by "Doc" Hunter Bush
MovieJawn Staff Writer & Podcast Director, cohost of the Hate Watch/Great Watch Podcast

Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival runs from Aug 25th - Aug 30th at Theatre Exile in Philadelphia. Get your tickets HERE.

The Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival celebrates their 11th year at the end of August, which, frankly, kicks ass. PUFF was founded as a film festival that defied easy genre definitions. Like a cinematic junk drawer (complimentary), PUFF was a catch-all for any films that were worth checking out but ran the risk of flying under the radar, regardless of how they might be categorized. The fact that the fest has been going for over a decade is a truly monumental achievement. Just ask anyone who does anything.

This year's shenanigans kick off on Tuesday August 25th with the now traditional filmmaker meet-up: professionals from the local (and relatively local) film scene, networking and building community. It's free, and if you're "in the biz" (as nobody worth knowing says) it seems like a great way to make some friends, some connections and maybe finally get that project off the ground. The actual screenings kick off on Wednesday night and run through Sunday, with feature-length flicks and multiple blocks of short films! This year also features Camp Puff on Thursday the 27th, an evening of screenings with a summer camp vibe! Appropriate attire is encouraged.

Below, I’ve compiled a round-up of some of the films on offer, and one of the short film blocks that I’m most looking forward to checking out! 

CAIN CAME HOME
Directed by Brett Glassberg
Written by Brett Glassberg
Acquire tickets HERE

Described as "a surreal, time-bending ghost story about estranged twin brothers", Cain Came Home looks very interesting. The repeated use of the phrase "...ghosts in this house...", the obscure camera angles, and the black and white cinematography lend the trailer a perplexing tone that I find really appealing. Apparently, the plot involves a man played by writer / director Brett Glassberg, and also named Brett, who is moving back into his childhood home. I'm guessing that the ghosts are maybe both of the phantasmal AND emotional varieties, or maybe, both? Find out when this screens on Wednesday, August 26th.

FRIDAY THE 69TH
Directed by Alex Montilla
Written by Alex Montilla
Acquire tickets HERE 

I love the Friday the 13th films, and the summer camp horror subgenre as a whole. I also like pornography (I watch it for the articles!) and I especially like the idea of a horror parody that combines these two things. Set in 1981, Friday the 69th finds a porn production trying to cash in on the slasher craze by filming their usual erotic fare at a summer camp with a tragic backstory and being menaced by a killer beekeeper. Will this be something akin to Wet Hot American Summer, but with a lot more over-the-top, '80s-style teen murder? Find out at Camp Puff on Thursday, August 27th! 

THE BARN PART III
Directed by Justin M. Seaman
Written by Zane Hershberger, Justin M. Seaman
Acquire tickets HERE

I have a confession to make: I haven't checked out either of the previous Barn films, though they HAVE been on my to-watch list for quite a while now. Beginning in 2016 with the original The Barn, some unwitting teens seem to have unleashed three evil beings (a pumpkin head, a scarecrow, and an undead miner ?) that have apparently been semi-persistent problems for them as well as the nearby town. The Barn Part III seems to take place years after the initial unlashing, with the surviving crew worried that the beings will return yet again. Perhaps join me in double featuring the first two Barn installments in time to experience Part III on Friday, August 28th!

SUGAR ROT
Directed by Becca Kozak
Written by Becca Kozak
Acquire tickets HERE 

This one seems w-i-l-d! After surviving an assault by a sinister ice cream man, Candy (Chloë MacLeod) finds herself impregnated with a supernatural monster baby, and finds her body slowly transforming into ice cream! This transformation also seems to make her irresistible to other people, as the trailer showcases several people involved in semi-sexual scenarios devouring Candy because they love the sweet taste! I'm expecting to be left feeling uncomfortable, craving a sweet snack, and rocking out to the punk soundtrack when this plays on Saturday, August 29th.

LOCAL SHORTS BLOCK
Acquire tickets HERE

PUFF 11 boasts over 70 titles, which sounds impossible if you're not aware of one very important fact: PUFF's got love for the shorties! With five discrete blocks of short film programming spread across the fest, as well as one block of music videos, you're certain to find something right up your alley. Everybody loves the Horror Shorts Block (which plays on Saturday evening), and that one is always a barnburner, but my hometown pride makes the Local Shorts Block my personal recommendation. Drop by at noon on Sunday, August 30th and take in the assortment of short films from local filmmakers!

The Gospel of Brahms

The Gospel of Brahms

By “Doc” Hunter Bush


In the church of cinema, all are welcome.

When you watch a lot of movies as I do, it’s hard to find yourself really and truly reeling from a film. Not “surprised” in the usual “I’ve never seen that before”, or “I can’t believe we’re going there” ways. Numerous filmmakers’ entire filmographies are those kinds of films. No. I’m talking about a tricksier bit of cinematic magic: the kind where you think you’re well ahead of the movie you’re watching, savvy to all the coming reveals, when in fact you couldn’t be less on the trolley.


The Old Testament:


William Brent Bell’s 2016 slow burn thriller The Boy and 2020 sequel Brahms: The Boy 2 are exactly this kind of movie. I’ve spoken at length about my opinion of the original flick and my experience watching it for the first time (on the Hate Watch/Great Watch podcast, episode 45), but I’m always happy to do so again. I am not a religious man by inclination, but I will happily be the prophet of the Gospel of Brahms and to grow the film’s flock.

I implore you to seek out and experience these films for yourself before continuing, but for those still here: The Boy tells the story of Greta (Lauren Cohan), a young American woman taking a live-in childcare job for the Heelshire family in England. At first it seems like Greta will be caring for a doll which the Heelshires simply think is their deceased son Brahms - a phenomena called Animism - before Greta starts to think that perhaps Brahms is, in some way, a conduit for a spirit. The script by Stacey Menear even leaves breadcrumbs implying that the spirit in the house is not of the dead Heelshire boy but of a childhood playmate named Emily Cribbs who passed away under suspicious circumstances decades ago. This misdirection works so well because it appears as if it’s hidden, giving the viewer the feeling that they’re piecing everything together when in fact they’re ignoring much bigger, stranger clues hidden in plain sight.

The rules, for instance. Greta is left a list of rules that she must follow, lest she risk angering the temperamental Brahms. Some, such as Rule 6. Play Music Loud could be explained via supernatural predilections: maybe the afterlife is noisy? But others, like Rule 3. Leave Meals in Freezer seem to have no unearthly explanation. In the finale, it is revealed that Brahms’ shenanigans aren’t supernatural but rather the work of a human - albeit a very strange, obsessive, socially hampered one -  who has been living in the walls of his family home since childhood; a ruse intended to shirk any responsibility in the death of Emily Cribbs.

Watching the Brahms-the-man emerge from the wall (wearing a porcelain mask, as one does) is one of those transcendent film moments. To quote Rosalie Kicks “Your pants are shit.” I remember scooting forward until I was literally on the edge of my bed with my jaw wide open and my eyes even wider somehow. It was without a doubt one of the biggest viewing surprises in my adult life. So much so that I began to, slowly, quietly, devote my life to spreading the good word of Brahms.

The Boy was not a huge success. No one really made much of a fuss about it during its release. In fact, I only watched it on a whim via a streaming service some years later. The fact that there had been no chatter about a sequel or any inkling of an extended Brahms cinematic universe in all the time since release led me to presume that it would remain a secret, shared only among a chosen few. But lo and behold one day I heard the good word! A miracle had happened! Someone had greenlit a sequel! Huzzah! That sequel would end up being called Brahms: The Boy 2 and it would upend everything I thought I knew about Brahms.

The New Testament:


Though Brahms-the-man had apparently perished in the final moments of the Old Testament, here we are introduced to another traumatized family who end up finding Brahms-the-doll half buried in the woods around the former Heelshire estate and begin to experience similar, though less obtusely supernatural, activities. There are new rules this time, and more violence, and we learn that there is more to “Brahms” than we’d originally thought. Not only has Brahms-the-doll been around far longer than it previously seemed, but he’s always been associated with violence; killer children specifically.

Again, I urge you to seek out and experience both of the testaments for yourself, but having said that: In the climax of the New Testament, we see that the doll, previously thought to be only that, is actually the physical vessel for some gnarled, profane thing - headflesh pulsating, oozing fluids from it’s sphincteral mouth - despite being hundreds of years old! We learn that it whispers to its victims, who seem to historically be male, and take a kind of control of them where they are in its thrall and no longer fully in command of their own minds, nor actions. After seemingly destroying Brahms-the-doll, the family believe they have returned to some form of normalcy only for the film’s final moments to reveal that Brahms-the-thing still has its connection to son Jude (Christopher Convery).

Clearly we have not learned all there is to learn about “Brahms”.

The Gospel of Brahms


When the slasher franchises of the ‘80s lumbered their way into the theaters of the ‘90s, they took chances. Jason went to Manhattan, Hell, and eventually space; Michael Myers was revealed to bear an ancient rune which explained his supernatural singlemindedness; Freddy got meta. Your mileage may vary on how well any of these choices played out, but you have to admire the gusto. Both entries into the Boy franchise capture that same energy, the feeling of the rug dying to be pulled out from under you without a moment’s notice and with no care for your feelings on the matter.

In a better world, The Boy would have as many titles on the metaphorical video store shelf as Friday the 13th, or Halloween, or A Nightmare on Elm St. There should be a new canon of post-millennial slasher boogeymen that includes Brahms, as well as Ma, Krampus and The Empty Man (each from their respective titles), maybe even Gabriel from Malignant. Why not? I feel less and less like filmmakers are being constrained by their genres, relying on audiences’ familiarity with certain clichés to set up the twists and turns ahead.

Any film can have a “twist ending”, but few pull it off as satisfyingly as The Boy. Each time I rewatch it, I notice some new subtle detail that supports the ending. Not even The Boy 2 can catch that lightning in a bottle twice, but I still admire its swagger. To commit so thoroughly to an ending as ludicrous as “the doll was really hiding an unknown creature” is …impressive if nothing else. I doubt we’ll get any further entries into the franchise, but I’d’ve said the same and been wrong before. Where could these possible future installments lead? What could they reveal? The franchise has proven that nothing is really off the table.

During the pandemic lockdown, MovieJawn adopted Brahms as a mascot for COVID safety, imploring everyone to “follow the rules”. Neither myself nor MovieJawn condone the actions, methodologies, or objectives of Brahms he/they/itself, because that’s not what the Gospel of Brahms is about. It’s about surprises. About the audience being guided on a journey where you think you know your destination. About that visceral pants-shit fun you can only have with movies. Each film takes a big swing and, when viewed on their own, can be extremely entertaining viewing experiences that defy the jaded “seen it all” feelings that, sadly, many genre efforts tend to elicit. When considered as parts of a larger story however, they become fascinatingly strange; hinting at a great, dark and glittering chasm beyond the confines of familiar, easy, genre expectations.

With his serene porcelain visage and fancy lad sweater vest ensemble, Brahms just seems so reasonable. And he is, so long as everyone follows the rules. But perhaps you have to know the rules to know when you can break the rules. And that is the Gospel of Brahms. Amen.

_________________________________________

This piece was written for MovieJawn, a fabulous site where you can find tons of other excellent movie-centric writings, a shop where you can subscribe to the quarterly physical zine, or listen to me on the  Hate Watch / Great Watch  podcast! Support the MovieJawn Patreon here!
_________________________________________