/ Critic
/ Method (2025) | Dir. Chandler Balli
/ ★★★½☆

It’s the middle of the night, and there I am, staring at a monitor filled with a face covered in duct tape. The flash is quick, and the jump scare hits hard… small, misshapen eyes staring back.

Both the mask’s eyes and the ones behind it.

Moments later, that same guy is driving a power drill into the head of another victim, also wrapped in duct tape.

Super light.

I thought to myself: “This is gonna end badly…”, and yet, I kept watching.

It all started with this trailer right here:

At first glance, it seemed like an easy movie to write about: it was either going to be a total narcissistic disaster or… a genuinely fun, fresh, and timely film, just as the trailer promised.

Method is a bit of both (and no, it’s not a disaster).

A hyped‑up director convinces his cast to sign five‑year contracts with a $1 million immersion clause. The actors are required to completely “vanish” from their personal lives to add authenticity to their on‑screen deaths. Now comes the spoiler that isn’t really a spoiler: he was actually killing the actors to film real deaths… and that five‑year deadline was rapidly approaching.

While Chandler Balli’s direction breathes, terrifies, and annoys without over‑explaining, his performance as director Derek Ryan feels anxious and deeply uncomfortable. He lands a few funny, quick‑witted lines, but he’s socially awkward around women and possesses zero interpersonal skills.

He shifts as the set empties out, letting slip his unease with outside interference and the ticking‑clock pressure of being exposed…

By his side is Travis Lee Prine as Trevor (who insists on being called by his character’s name, Eric): the sidekick used to trigger even bigger outbursts from Derek. Trevor is literally the definition of creepy, and it works brilliantly.

There are technical flaws, but they blend seamlessly with the film’s aesthetic choices. Considering its $3,500 budget, this ambiguity actually works in Method’s favor.

The movie runs like a portfolio. Balli seems more interested in showcasing his potential as a director and actor, experimenting with production ideas, and using the space to double down on his critique of the industry: exposing the tsunami of ego shared among directors, actors, and crew alike. Even modern media and a TMZ‑like outlet get dragged into it, acting almost as a character in the story. Balli plays heavily with meta‑language.

That felt like a valid reading… until it proved incomplete. What sounded like a portfolio with an aesthetic defense, was actually world‑building and mythology expansion. And I only realized this once I fell down the Tapeface rabbit hole…

Digging deeper into Chandler Balli, I stumbled upon a link to watch Tapeface (2024), referenced in Method as the first installment of a serial‑killer trilogy that went viral for recording its murders on home VHS. The film was made for $10 (yes, literally ten bucks) and started as an exercise between Balli and Prine to test the character’s full potential. It sells itself as home‑cooked snuff, found footage recovered from somewhere lost by the world.

It’s a really weird and remarkable experience. Most of the time, we have Tapeface’s point of view, following his path toward the victim. Every frame feels like a prompt, a reminder that he could show up in your house. He’s part of the environment like a lamp… and unpredictable as hell. At the same time.

You can watch it here:

But hey… we are in 2026, and where else have you been hearing about home‑cooked found footage lately?

The subgenre, mega‑consolidated by The Blair Witch Project back in 1999, is being broadly reclaimed and justified by a new generation of horror, suspense, and alternative filmmakers.

We’re looking at a wave of 20‑something directors emerging straight from YouTube, headlined by Kane Parsons (director of Backrooms, making almost $400 million at 20 years old) and Curry Barker (Obsession, pulling in $460 million).

A generation that learned to film on their own, without film school, without industry connections, using cheap cameras and free platforms, has officially hit the mainstream (and Hollywood bought right into it). It’s pure Gen Z cinema: cynical humor, a total disregard for classical editing rules, and the hyper‑awareness of a generation that grew up in front of a lens. For them, horror doesn’t need an orchestra; all it takes is the hum of home‑video noise and the ironic detachment of people who have already seen it all online.

Chandler Balli has something you can’t buy with a bigger budget: a distinct voice and a character that already has a life of its own long before securing distribution. The exact kind of thing that, in independent horror, eventually finds its audience (and rarely warns you before pulling off the first scare).