Unseen (2026) by Steve Merlo

Director: Steve Merlo

Year: 2026

Country: Canada

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Psychological

Plot:

After a traumatic incident, a disturbed man goes around trying to make a relationship work with a strange woman he meets in the city as a way to help him get over the breakup, unaware that his series of mental problems is preventing anything positive from happening with them.

Review:

Overall, this was a decent at best gene effort. When this one works best is by allowing the deranged and unhinged mindset to develop a full-blown sense of psychosis in the guy’s broken mindset. The fact that it frequently shifts the storyline to go into his train of thought and go in depth on the various personal rants about how the relationship ended, what caused them to break up, and what he wants out of her to keep her from leaving him makes this come across as a solid descent into his grieving process and how it affects him. Going first-person mode and seeing things through his eyes and he rants and raves about how much the relationship meant to him as a whole, while seeing him also carry out a string of brutal murders with the understanding that he’s living out his fantasies through killing others, creates the kind of deranged depth that works incredibly well here.

Likewise, when it shifts to the friends who become his new target and start going after her as his deranged mind believes her and her friends are looking to interrupt his plans to win back the new girl, there’s some chilling material at play here. With the whole thing coming about due to the belief that her new date is the culprit of the strange phone calls, threatening messages, and attempts on her life, the series of exploratory investigations into the past indiscretions of the potential perpetrator, who has been responsible for everything, all give this some intriguing work as it builds to the big stalking scene in the finale. Putting everything together and making their paranoia fully rationalized while the continuous looks into his psyche, trying to get to the girl he thinks he’s stalking, makes this all rather fun for what it is.

There are some big issues here that do become quite problematic. The main issue here is that, for as much as his psyche feels built up and fully realized, there’s not much on the main girl that makes the subterfuge feel earned. The idea of him stalking her as if trying to get back at his old girlfriend who left him is a lot more worthwhile if the connection to her is a bit better and makes sense, whereas everything here just feels way more random. That makes it more realistic, but with the kind of in-depth nature we get here, this should’ve been handled in a much more cohesive fashion, as we don’t really know why he’s going after her. This also makes the film feel quite sluggish and dull to get going, switching back and forth between these different storylines rather than getting into the really worthwhile elements of why he’s trying to get something going with her. With the finale set in motion only through the unrealistic and outright stupid behavior of her friends for no reason other than plot convenience, there are some factors at play within this one.

Overview: ***/5

A likable if flawed genre effort, this one comes about rather nicely in the end, even though some of the big issues here are quite detrimental and lower this one quite significantly. Those with an appreciation for this style of genre fare or who are fine with the issues presented will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.