This year marks the tenth year for the Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival! PUFF weekend is always a treat, featuring truly independent cinema from all around the world, spanning every genre imaginable. Features, shorts, locally shot curiosities, horror, drama, comedy, music videos, and even experimental oddities. There’s something here for everyone, and plenty of new things for the even the most passive cinephile to discover. In the previous decade of programming, PUFF has done incredible work brining unique gems to the big screen, and the 2025 lineup continues the trend of unmissable cinema that you simply won’t find anywhere else.
Pater Noster and the Mission of Light (dir. Christopher Bickel)
Full disclosure: by the time I’d reached this point in the fest I found myself almost entirely out of juice and in desperate need of a second wind. It’s at this time in any film festival where I typically find myself being a bit harsher on the films than I usually tend to be. Luckily, about halfway through Pater Noster my second wind hit, and the back half of this truly wild flick had me ready to do flips through the theater.
As a yet another entry in a long line of “we decided to visit an obviously evil cult and now we have to escape the cult because they’re killing us,” it admittedly took a while for this one to get going, since we all know where it’s headed (again, see my opening caveat), but what differentiates this one from so many of its subgenre predecessors is that it doesn’t waste time acting like the audience doesn’t know that the cult is evil. In fact, it revels in it. So rather than wondering when the shoe will drop, the viewer finds themself wondering how the shoe will drop. Once it drops, and the methodology behind the cult’s madness is revealed, buckets of blood start flowing while questions about the overarching mythology (and even its place in the time continuum) open up.
The film’s title is in reference to a band/cult/compound who put out a bunch of records in the ‘60s, and whose output is so unique and uncommon that said records are now worth exponentially more than their sticker price. Our heroine Max (Adara Starr) is always on the lookout for rare wax to resell at her job as a record store clerk. When a stash of Pater Noster records falls into her hands she potentially hits pay dirt. Max is more of an audiophile than a capitalist, so she’s much more interested in the tunes than the cash. And when a representative of the Mission of Light invites her for a visit, she and her friends can’t resist, despite many, many foreboding signs.
The film has a scrappy DIY energy which helps pave over the first act’s repetitive and sometimes stilted dialogue (during a post-movie Q&A, the filmmaker revealed the astonishingly low budget — I’m in awe of what was accomplished). And by the time the wheels are off and blood is spraying and limbs are getting chopped and everyone is chanting, well, who could resist? I plan to buy the blu-ray.
Bonus: The original Pater Noster music created for the film is legitimately very good!!!
Alan at Night (dir. Jesse Swenson)
I love found footage. I’ve also had roommates that were kinda weird. I’ve also been the kinda weird roommate who just wants his more lively roommates to leave him alone. As such, Alan at Night was easily my favorite film of this year’s PUFF.
The framing device for this comedy/horror crowdpleaser is that of a documentary made by two stereotypical podcast bros, in which they chronicle their experiences with Alan, one of the podcaster’s temporary new roommate. He’s a herpetologist (he studies reptiles and amphibians, not herpes, as our bros quickly learn), and he’ll be living in the extra room for just one month. Alan is quite the character, and the way his lifestyle clashes with that of the storytellers is a consistent source of tension. It’s horror from both ends of the situation: a mutual state of discomfort brought on by the actions of the other. It’s all best left unspoiled, but Alan’s behavior, as well as the hosts’ response to it, grows concerning and bizarre, leading to compounding complications and acts of subterfuge.
If you’ve seen a found footage movie before, you probably have an idea where it’s headed, but the fun here comes from the buildup. Fans of cringe comedy will lose their minds (good). Non-fans of cringe comedy will lose their minds (bad). The final reveal is silly to the point of being tonally off from the rest of the film, but that makes it no less fun. The reason it ultimately works is the performances. Our two podcast bros (Joseph Basquill & Jorge Felipe Guevara) feel ripped directly from the real world. They’re entertaining and engaging, but often they’re the WORST — which is to say, accurate.
It’s Chris Ash as the titular Alan who steals the show. I’ve met so many Alans in my life, and shades of each one of them are in Ash’s performance. The film’s biggest laughs come not from the podcaster’s shenanigans, but from Alan’s meek, dry nerdiness. “Spicy Alan” is the hardest I’ve laughed at anything in recent memory, and it would also make a great name for a ska band.
