Tribe — Tribe(VOD)
Tribe is a sci-fi/horror found footage film regarding a retired professor clawing back his sanity, when he finds himself stuck in the California mountains, unable to drive with his body altered & his mind frazzled. The 2025 film blends elements of unfolding mystery, body horror, and cosmic horror- with moments of glitching dark surrealism. Here from GrimmVision is a VOD release of the film.
The film was written, directed, and stars Dan Asma- this is his second credit, his debut feature film was Cinematographer(2022) a documentary about the art of filmmaking.
The picture focuses on grey-bearded Devin (Asma), a retired professor in video studies. We first meet him in a rather confused state, with his face seemingly infected with a skin disease, and one of his pupils has turned white. He’s sitting in a vehicle, and he talks about not being able to comprehend how to drive. He decides to go back through the tapes and drives in the back of his vehicle- bit by bit, figuring out how & why he landed up here.
As the one-hour and eleven-minute film unfolds, we find out that it all revolves around old videotapes left for him by his friend from university Charle (Keaton Asma), who killed himself. He was fascinated/ involved with a California mountains set cult that is somehow connected to a storage container, which may lead to another reality.
The film is a slow but steady unfolding affair- built around footage of Devin travelling up to and roaming around mountains. discussion between him & his ex-wife, Zoom calls with a selection of academics, and what's on the video tapes/ drives. It’s certainly a very back story-heavy example of the found footage genre- and does at times get a little weighed down/ less engaging due to this.
Asma is believable as our retired professor, and it’s nice to see a found footage film built around someone not in their twenties. The rest of the small cast is a little mixed, with some of the experts/academics being either somewhat wooden or rather hamming it up.
Like many found footage horror films, it takes a little bit of time to get to the more creepy/horror-filled moments. These start with uneasy/ creepy forest cam footage, moving all the way to surreal glitched out reality moments- some of the latter do go a little too OTT.
Tribe is certainly one of the more well-conceived, unfolding mystery-bound takes on the found footage genre. It features a good sense of building dread/unease, as well as some decent jump scares/ effective moments of horror. I'd certainly be interested in seeing future work from Mr Asma.