Out of FrightFest, Ian SBF’s The Flesh Itself emerges as the festival’s best offering this year. The film, co-written with Deive Pazos and Alexandre Ottoni, examines the ravages of wartime, harbored biases, and the bigger picture at play in our everyday lives. Human beings have been and continue to be the most savage beasts we encounter, and the writer/director showcases the emotional friction between both friends and enemies, highlighting themes of resilience, perseverance, accountability, and vengeance. With its Robert Eggers-spun style, also owed to cinematographer Vinicius Brum, The Flesh Itself achieves a great understanding of the human condition that’s been pulverized into believing life works a certain way, only to have the reality be something very different.
During the Paraguayan War in 1870, three soldiers, Gabriel (Pierre Baitelli), Gustavo (Jorge Guerreiro), and Anselmo (George Sauma), desert their unit and flee into the woods. Their worried feet carry them far and wide, until they reach a secluded farmhouse where they meet Fazendeiro (Luiz Carlos Persy) and a young woman named Garota (Jade Mascarenhas). The trio humbly accepts Fazendeiro’s generosity of room and board. But it’s only a matter of time before commanding officers track them down. For now, Gabriel, Gustavo, and Anselmo rest and regain their strength for the rest of their long journey into the city.
The group soon comes face to face with another mysterious danger. Fazendeiro isn’t who they think he is, and they are forced into a twisted survival game that tests their loyalties to one another. Sometimes, the ones we should be able to trust are those we’ve once called our friends. The Flesh Itself serves up heavy prices in pounds of both physical flesh and mental flesh; their shared trauma proving to be equally a weapon as it is an Achilles’ heel.
The Flesh Itself fully embraces its character-driven plot, combing the wants and desires of deeply flawed characters who believe they’re just doing their God-given duty. Baitelli, Guerreiro, and Sauma deliver three of the best performances of 2026, especially Guerreiro, whose emotional magnetism makes him a bonafide heavy hitter. Together, the trio creates a world full of desperation, yearning, betrayal, and uncaged mania. Persy also gives a menacing, diabolical performance worthy of Willem Dafoe, one entrenched in the darkest, muddiest waters of humanity. Even villains have their reasons for their crimes.
Ian SBF’s The Flesh Itself targets a particular kind of horror viewer. It’s a dialogue-focused chamber piece about what it means to be committed to a cause, loved ones, or something else altogether. It’s moody, atmospheric, and gravely intoxicating. And the pay-off relieves the back-breaking tension pressurized in the slow build. The film doesn’t just struggle the morals of war and racism, but it glimpses into existence on a macro level, uncovering the evil that fuels us all.
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