Your comfort show is supposed to help you escape reality. But what happens when it starts asking you to stay?
That's the unsettling idea behind Life at Sandy's, a Norwegian-American indie psychological horror film from writer and director Aleksandra Hansen. Starting today, August 7, U.S. audiences can virtually stream the film as part of the Popcorn Frights Film Festival, with online availability running through August 8.
The story follows Evelyn, played by Heather Cunningham, an American woman stuck in a small Norwegian town following the death of her mother. After spending years as her mother's caretaker, Evelyn has lost touch with her friends and the life she once had back in the United States.
Things don't exactly improve after the funeral. Evelyn's overbearing Aunt Marit arrives, claims ownership of the house Evelyn has been living in, and pressures her to find a job. Between her grief, isolation, and increasingly difficult home life, Evelyn begins retreating into something familiar: a wholesome American sitcom.
And honestly, who hasn't used a comfort show to disappear from the real world for a while?
Except Evelyn's show starts getting a little too comforting.
As her obsession grows, Sandy, the owner of the sitcom's coffee shop, begins talking directly to her. Other characters, including Vincent and Jen, treat Evelyn like she's already one of their closest friends. Inside their bright, familiar television world, she can have the happiness and connection missing from her actual life.
Suddenly reality has some competition.
That's where Life at Sandy's takes the warm familiarity of a '90s network sitcom and turns it into something deeply unsettling. Instead of making the television world immediately terrifying, the premise makes it tempting. Evelyn isn't simply being haunted by these characters. She's being offered a place where she might actually want to stay.
As she retreats further from reality, Evelyn eventually faces a choice between the painful life waiting outside the television and the seemingly perfect sitcom world inviting her in. Whether that invitation is salvation, manipulation, or something much worse is where the psychological nightmare takes hold.
Written and directed by Aleksandra Hansen, Life at Sandy's marks Hansen's feature debut and mixes slow-burn psychological horror with dark comedy and the artificial coziness of classic television. The film is currently unrated.
For horror fans who enjoy something a little stranger than the usual masked killer or haunted house, this sounds like an interesting one to catch while the virtual screening window is open.
Life at Sandy's is available to stream virtually across the U.S. through Popcorn Frights starting today, August 7, with availability through August 8.
Just remember: comfort shows are great.
Until the characters notice you're watching.
