Film Festivals: A Scary Movie (2025) by Sergio Oksman: A Metacinematic Documentary Exploring Isolation and Fatherhood in an Abandoned Hotel

A Metacinematic Documentary Una película de miedo is a Spanish-Portuguese feature-length documentary with a runtime of 1 hour and 12 minutes (72 minutes). Written and directed by Sergio Oksman, the film documents Oksman's own experience during a summer vacation in Lisbon, where he and his twelve-year-old son, Nuno Oksman, stay in an abandoned hotel. The film explicitly references the horror classic The Shining, using the empty, isolated hotel as a setting to explore the relationship between father and son, and the process of making a "scary movie." The cast consists of the director, his son, and others playing "Self," suggesting a blurring of documentary and dramatic elements.

Why to watch this movie: For Its Unique, Self-Reflexive Concept

• A Genre-Bending Experiment: The film is a fascinating exercise in metacinema, using a documentary format to deliberately evoke a fictional horror film (The Shining). This invites viewers to question what is real, what is performance, and what truly makes a movie "scary."

• Intimate Look at Fatherhood: Beyond the horror trappings, the film is an intimate character study of a director and his son. The isolating environment of the hotel becomes a strange, contained space to explore the relationship between a father and his boy during a pivotal summer.

• Atmospheric and Evocative Setting: The empty, abandoned hotel in Lisbon acts as a powerful, unsettling character, providing a ready-made atmospheric backdrop for psychological tension and mystery.

• Sergio Oksman's Auteur Voice: Oksman is known for his contemplative, boundary-pushing documentary style. This film continues his exploration of narrative, memory, and the role of the filmmaker in shaping reality.

Where to watch movie (industry professionals): https://pro.festivalscope.com/film/a-scary-movie

Link IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36955468/

Link Review: https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/483993

About movie: https://www.patraspanou.com/films/a-scary-movie#:~:text=A%20scary%20movie%20%E2%80%93%20Patra%20Spanou%20Film&text=During%20the%20summer%20vacations%2C%20a,stories%20of%20monsters%20and%20ghosts.

What Trend is followed?: The Foundational Horror Documentary Una película de miedo follows the trend of the "foundational horror documentary," where the making-of or the attempt-to-make of a horror film is the central subject, often resulting in a piece of work that is more unsettling than a conventional horror movie.

• Metacinematic Self-Reflection: The film aligns with the trend of directors placing themselves and their families into their work, using the camera not just to record but to provoke and explore the boundary between their personal lives and their artistic creation.

• The 'Shining' Homage: The explicit reference to The Shining is a key trend in contemporary horror and documentary, where filmmakers pay homage to seminal works to instantly tap into a collective sense of cinematic dread and isolation.

• Contained and Minimalist Narrative: The tight runtime and single, isolating location align with the trend of minimalist filmmaking, where limited resources are used to maximize psychological tension and character focus.

Director's Vision: Deconstructing Fear and Narrative

• Exploring the Nature of Fear: Director Sergio Oksman's vision is to deconstruct what makes a movie scary. By placing a real father and son in a fictionalized horror setting, he uses the environment to test their relationship and the inherent tensions of family life.

• The Hotel as a Psychological Space: The abandoned hotel is not just a location; it is a metaphor for the mind or the family unit under duress. Oksman uses the emptiness and isolation to heighten the psychological stakes of the real-life interactions.

• Blurring Reality and Fiction: The choice to list all the main actors, including the director and his son, as "Self" reinforces the director's intent to blur the lines between documentary observation and dramatic staging, challenging the audience's definition of narrative truth.

Themes: Isolation, Fatherhood, and The Uncanny

• The Isolation of Creativity: The film explores the isolating experience of the filmmaker who withdraws from the world to create art, using his own family as his subjects.

• The Uncanny in the Domestic: The horror elements stem from the uncanny—the familiar (a family vacation) suddenly placed in a strange, unsettling environment (an empty, Shining-like hotel).

• The Legacy of Fear: The relationship between father and son explores how fear, both cinematic and real, is transmitted across generations, and how a child processes the strange choices of his creative parent.

Key success factors: High-Concept Hook and Arthouse Appeal

• The Shining Hook: The immediate comparison to The Shining is a strong marketing hook that generates curiosity across horror, genre, and arthouse audiences.

• Festival Credibility: The film's high-concept, boundary-pushing structure makes it an ideal candidate for film festivals, ensuring critical buzz and positioning it as a work of intellectual weight.

• Unique Perspective: The intimate father-son documentary core gives the film a unique emotional weight that separates it from standard horror fare.

Awards and Nominations: Early Festival Recognition The film has received 2 nominations total, signaling early recognition from festivals or industry bodies.

Critics reception: No Major Critic Consensus Yet The film has not yet received a consensus from major critics, with only 2 critic reviews visible.

Reviews: No Published Reviews Available Yet

• IMDb Users (6.5/10): The low number of user reviews suggests a niche film, but the average rating is positive, indicating a strong appreciation among those who have seen it.

Release dates: Theatrical and Streaming

• Release date on streaming: Information on a streaming release is not available.

• Theatrical Release: The film is scheduled to be released in Spain on September 19, 2025.

What Movie Trend film is following: The Hybrid Reality Film The film follows the trend of the "hybrid reality film" or "docu-fiction," where documentary form is deliberately complicated by fictional staging, personal performance, and references to cinema itself. This challenges the audience's expectation of truth, mirroring the works of directors who use their own lives as raw material for art.

What Big Social Trend is following: The Modern Isolation of the Family The film taps into the social trend of the modern isolation of the family. By placing the father and son in an entirely empty hotel during their summer vacation, the film serves as a metaphor for the way modern life—even during periods of supposed rest—can isolate the family unit and force them to confront their own internal dynamics without external distraction.

Final Verdict: A Fascinating, Contemplative Experiment Una película de miedo is a fascinating, contemplative, and unconventional work that will appeal to cinephiles and fans of challenging documentary filmmaking. Director Sergio Oksman uses the familiar dread of The Shining to create an intimate, psychological portrait of a father and his son. While it may not deliver jump scares, its intelligence and atmospheric tension make it a unique and important piece of metacinema that is well worth seeking out.