Overlook Film Festival 2026: ‘The Holy Boy’ delivers a twisted religious experience
Paolo Strippoli’s The Holy Boy, which plays the 2026 Overlook Film Festival, bears a striking (emotional) resemblance to Rose Glass’ 2019 breakout, Saint Maud. Both films analyze modern religion, the exploitation of the vulnerable, and the role the hive-mind plays in perpetuating evil in God’s name. Strippoli co-wrote the razor-sharp script with Jacopo Del Giudice and Milo Tissone and brings the story to raw, pulsing life. Horror has a long-standing relationship with commenting on the plague of religious fanaticism. While it’s well-charted territory, The Holy Boy lights a match to the ground in such a way that destroys who we perceive as the real threat, and if destruction is sometimes warranted.
Substitute teacher Sergio (Michele Riondino) takes up a three-month position in a small Italian town known for its cheery disposition among its residents. The village, known as the “Valley of Smiles,” gives strong Uncanny Valley vibes, and Sergio is just not in the mood. He still mourns the death of his son, for which he blames himself. To cope with his grief, he frequents a local pub and tosses back drink after drink. He becomes so intoxicated one night that he causes considerable property damage and terrifies bartender Michela (Romana Maggiora Vergano), who ultimately gives him a ride home.
Michela seizes the opportunity to introduce Sergio to a secluded religious faction that believes hugging a young teenager named Matteo (Giulio Feltri) brings true healing from pain. Matteo’s stern, unfeeling father Mauro (Paolo Pierobon) leads late-night gatherings where numerous townsfolk come to be transformed into a relentlessly happy person. Upon meeting Sergio, Matteo starts questioning everything and sees the wool being slowly removed from his eyes. He’s had to endure the literal weight of the world. Despite being just a child, the community mistakes exploitation for undying faith. What they’ve been doing to poor Matteo is akin to conversion therapy—we soon learn of Matteo’s hidden attraction to another boy at school. He’s been conditioned to suppress those feelings for the sake of the greater good. In reality, it’s slowly chipped away at his self-worth and understanding of the world.
Strippoli, Del Giudice, and Tissone dissect what it means to be queer in the church while also peeling back the layers on institutional extremism and religious trauma in a way that’s visceral and timely. The Holy Boy balloons into a much larger story about containing perceived evil, the unknown, and the play between brainwashing and deconstruction. As a result, Strippoli conveys Matteo’s collapsing mental state with an earthy sensibility that stretches gnarled knuckles into deep psychological roots that feel equally traumatizing and beautiful.
The Holy Boy doesn’t just flip religious horror on its head. Paolo Strippoli’s earth-quaking film causes rifts in the genre’s thematic tectonic plates, from Feltri’s commanding lead performance to the obliteration of normalized nationalist beliefs. There could not have been a more socially and politically relevant time to unleash The Holy Boy on the world. It’s the sort of horror film that feels too real, too revealing, and too grotesque. So often, horror doesn’t come from monsters. It comes from human beings.
The Holy Boy streams on Shudder later this year.
