Unnamed Footage Festival 2025: ‘McCurdy Point’ casts a haunting genre spell

It’s a tale as old as time: a group of friends heads to a cabin in the woods, and things inevitably go wrong. It’s a tired premise, but when executed well, it can strike fear and evoke blood-curdling screams. In McCurdy Point, co-directors Jeremy Brothers and Nick Paonessa use genre conventions as a jumping off point to regale their own spooky tale. While the creative team sticks to playing in the same genre sandbox, they excel in achieving the goal they set out to accomplish: scare people. From expertly moody camera work, a gorgeous location, and well-timed jump scares, the film emerges as a standout at this year’s Unnamed Footage Festival.

Nick (Kiel Kennedy) is turning 40. His buddies decide to throw him a getaway trip to celebrate. Sam (Ryan Gaul) and company opt not to go to Las Vegas and instead head out to a secluded lakeside cabin in Maine. The view is refreshing, a deceptive backdrop for a good old-fashioned haunting. Hollis (Laird Macintosh), whose cabin they’re renting for the weekend, is a cheeky local with a creepy grin and lots of cringy jokes. He loves to drink whiskey and tell stories, too. Once at the cabin, he shows them around the property and reveals that his grandmother, Marion, once owned the home and passed it down to him. Over a hundred years old, the dwelling certainly has a storied past.

But the group doesn’t pay Hollis no mind. They settle into their temporary abode, ready to take on the weekend of drinking, fishing, boating, and bro time. Nick’s 40th birthday is the perfect occasion for a little recharge and to escape the pressures of reality. As soon as they arrive, strange things begin to happen – mostly when they’re not looking. A chair moves in the living area by itself, for example, and a dark, menacing figure appears in the window behind them while they’re all outside drinking around the campfire. These subtle scares set the stage, building suspense and dread until all hell breaks loose.

Paonessa and Brothers, the latter of whom co-wrote the script with actors Gaul and Kennedy, let the various bumps in the night breathe and blanket you in dread. Scares are never overwrought or undercooked; they’re just right in sitting with you long after the scene is over. Great attention is given to the sweeping countryside, populated by groves, and the lake’s crystal, still surface. Something is eerie about it all. The group doesn’t pay attention to their surroundings, as the cabin seems to sprout eyes and ears of its own to spy on them. A presence lurks in the cabin’s hallways and corners, just waiting to pounce when they least expect it.

McCurdy Point is perfectly calculated. Scares build slowly, unraveling like a candle’s lit wick, until everything boils over in the finale, when the entity reveals itself. It’s a terrifyingly effective mix of mood-drenched scares and jump scares that jolt you awake. While the frights land pretty well, filmmakers Jeremy Brothers and Nick Paonessa could have pushed the envelope a little bit more, to trade expectation for the goosebump-inducing unexpected. But as it stands, McCurdy Point is a welcome addition to the found-footage genre, known for provoking anxiety and making you horrified to go out into nature ever again. I know I’ll rethink it when I decide it’s a good idea to go solo camping in the middle of nowhere; that’s for sure. It’s not reinventing a single thing, but the film offers a fine-tuned shock fest that will assuredly slither under your fingernails. That’s what counts most.