Unnamed Footage Festival 2025: ‘Tinsman Road’ swerves and stalls in thriller territory

Robbie Banfitch’s The Outwaters made a big splash two years ago and instantly earned praise for its zaniness, absurdist presentation, and bizarre audio tracks. Becoming an instant cult classic, the film positioned Banfitch as one to watch in the indie circuit arena. Everyone itched for what he could possibly do next, and that day has finally come. Making its state-side premiere at the Unnamed Footage Festival, Banfitch’s follow-up Tinsman Road swerves into crime/thriller territory and fails to generate the expected scares.

Banfitch plays Robbie Lyle, a documentarian whose sister Noelle went missing some years ago. His mother, Leslie, keeps his sister’s room the same, hoping she’ll one day waltz through the front door. During the night, a music box turns on itself, and Leslie believes it’s a sign that Noelle is still hanging around the living. She firmly believes in angels and spirits that float around the physical realm and wait to reconnect with loved ones. She urges Robbie to mount his next documentary about angels, and instead, he begins investigating his sister’s disappearance. It’s a bold endeavor that sees him interviewing various locals about Tinsman Road, where Noelle allegedly vanished. As Robbie continues his search for truth, he stumbles upon answers that he isn’t ready to accept.

A stunningly meditative chamber piece, Tinsman Road hyper-focuses on Leslie’s grief and how the outward ripples have impacted her life. She can’t seem to move on. She treads water, letting waves of sadness wash over her and nearly drowning her. She spends many nights replaying home videos and cries. The film takes another shift in the second half, making it a mixture of Lake Mungo‘s mysterious web and Willow Creek‘s subtle ambiance/creepiness. Banfitch tosses both obvious influences into a bled, puts it on high, and then pours the concoction back out into found-footage goblets.

Tinsman Road is a far less effective genre foray than The Outwaters. That’s not to say there isn’t value in Banfitch’s sophomore effort; it’s a more glacially-paced snapshot of life and loss, which simply may not work for some. The filmmaker retools building blocks of tension and mood to put the story into place, unraveling fragments when appropriate and letting them erupt at other times. When Robbie goes wandering in the woods, searching for any signs of Noelle’s body, nature seems to swallow him whole. As darkness settles, he lies in his tent with nothing but his camera to capture strange footsteps outside his tent. In the way that Willow Creek punctures the air from the room, so does Tinsman Road in allowing the audience’s imagination to run wild.

“No generative AI was used in the creation or marketing of this feature,” promises Banfitch in the film’s official press kit. We, unfortunately, live in an age when making such a statement is essential in being able to enjoy a film and champion its creator. Grainy and typical for the genre, the film feels earnest and honest about its subject matter. However, Tinsman Road erects into a flimsy house of cards that could collapse at the slightest breath or breeze. While it’s evident that Robbie Banfitch has a deep adoration for found footage, he’s simply lost creative steam here. Tinsman Road doesn’t quite pack the necessary punch as The Outwaters, and it’s a bummer.