Young Kimberly (Kayla Lundstram) has been plagued by nightmares that a masked killer named "Platypus" is secretly terrorizing her small town. Though her dreams continue becoming more vivid, more violent, and keep getting closer to home, none of her friends take her warnings seriously—until it's too late. As Kimberly searches for clues about Platypus's whereabouts, she must find a way to stop the madman before she too joins his ever-expanding bodycount.

A lo-fi Super 8 slasher created within a realm of pure naïveté, Joshua Gratton's Platypus lives in the tradition of hazy 4am meditative states, stripping any subplots or character awareness in favor of pure vibes. Give in and surrender to the murderdrone.

Poster image courtesy Muscle Distribution

PLATYPUS, directed by Joshua Gratton, is a super low-budget horror filmed on Super 8, and if that makes it sound like something you and your gang would have done when you were kids (or now), well, it does and it doesn’t feel like that.

It has all the gorgeous grainy film, cheap practical effects, and discordant music you expect, but it’s also quietly clever and full of obvious love for the slasher genre.

Kimberly is having nightmares about a serial killer called Platypus, who wears a creepy mask and murders all her friends with a hatchet or a hammer or a seashell. She wryly notes in one of my favorite lines, “Seashells are for the ocean, not murder.”

She insists that he’s real and they have to stop him, but she can’t get anyone, including her best friends, to believe her until it’s too late.

There are some scenes with a fortune teller that I couldn’t quite piece together how they fit with the rest of the narrative, but I kind of loved them so much, it didn’t matter.

PLATYPUS is a rare thing - even discounting the low, low budget and camera choice - it’s a slow, quiet, introspective slasher film, and I can’t wait for all my horror-loving friends to see it.

PLATYPUS was screened at Fantastic Fest.

Stray Thought:

I’m not saying cooking just one piece of bacon is grounds for being murdered, but it’s pretty weird.

Platypus (2026)

No Rest for the Wicked (2026)