After several years of making short films, Hugo Keijzer has made his feature directorial debut with the survival thriller The Occupant – and we’re going to have the chance to see how the film has turned out very soon! Decal Releasing will be giving The Occupant a theatrical and VOD release in the United States on August 8th, and with that date just four weeks away, a trailer has dropped online. You can check it out in the embed above.
The film had its premiere at the 2025 SXSW London Film Festival just last month, and the reactions that came out of its two screenings there were quite positive.
Keijzer wrote the screenplay with Philip Michael Howe, Roelof Jan Minneboo, and Xiao Tang, crafting a story that centers on Abby, a desperate geologist who takes a high-paying, high-risk mining job in the remote wilds of Northern Georgia to fund her sister’s experimental cancer treatment. But when her chopper goes down and her radio becomes her only lifeline, Abby finds herself in a survival scenario that’s equal parts icy terrain & psychological warfare. Enter John, a mysterious voice on the other end. He’s charming, he’s helpful… and he might not be real. As Abby’s oxygen thins and her doubts rise, the real question isn’t how she’ll get out, but who she’s talking to… and what he wants. Is she really talking to someone who can help, someone who claims to “know exactly how she feels right now”? Scared, alone, and no idea how to get to safety.
Ella Balinska (Run Sweetheart Run, Charlie’s Angels, Resident Evil) and Rob Delaney (Deadpool 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, Catastrophe) star. Stuart Graham (Hunger), Sheena Kelly (Borderline), Vanessa Ifediora (A Haunting in Venice), Armin Karima (Sex Education), George Lasha (Extraction II), and newcomer Konstantine Roinishvili are also in the cast. The film was produced by Raymond van der Kaaij, Isabel Freer, Jay Taylor, and Kwesi Dickson. It has a running time of 104 minutes.
What did you think of the trailer for The Occupant? Does this look like a movie you’d be interested in watching next month? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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