Horror Highlights: I GOT THEM PEGGED, DANGEROUS ANIMALS, THE OTHER, LUST VALLEY

2025/04/30 17:23:47 +00:00 | Jonathan James

I GOT THEM PEGGED: "This Found-Footage Web Series Feels Like a Lost VHS You Weren’t Supposed to Find

There’s a YouTube channel out there where two siblings record themselves investigating a series of neighborhood mysteries. They’re not professionals. They’re not influencers. They might not even know what they’re doing. And yet, I Got Them Pegged — a DIY found-footage comedy series styled like a stack of cursed VHS tapes — might be one of the most unexpectedly charming things you’ll stumble across this year.

The show, which just released its third episode, is built to feel like something you’d find unlabeled in a thrift store bin: off-kilter, obsessive, and deeply homemade. But under the analog crust and static is a warm, weird, sharply funny mystery series that blends genre tropes with pure lo-fi heart.

Created by filmmaker John Strelec and starring Jeni Reed as Peg and Strelec as her brother Jessup, I Got Them Pegged is essentially a series of “tapes” — each episode its own miniature rental-store mystery. The siblings document everything: alien sightings, zombie bites, political conspiracies, and ghosts. The tone slides somewhere between Scooby-Doo, The X-Files, and a home video left in a VCR for twenty years. And that’s exactly the point.

“We wanted to make something that felt like when you were a kid and made movies with your friends using your mom’s camcorder,” says Strelec. “You’d make it up as you went, edit it in-camera, and no matter how bad it turned out, it was yours. That kind of creative energy is rare, and we missed it.”

That spirit runs deep in Pegged. The show doesn’t just imitate VHS style — it lives in it. Episodes are rough-cut and degraded by design. Poster art looks like something hand-painted for a community access horror marathon. Teasers are cut vertically and wrapped in tape hiss and tracking lines. It’s no surprise the project recently got a shoutout from Lunchmeat VHS, one of the analog media world’s most trusted taste-makers, calling it their “new favorite web series.”

But beneath the aesthetic, the show also delivers sincere character work. Peg is a believer — wide-eyed, excitable, certain that something out there is watching them. Jessup is the skeptic, reluctantly playing cameraman while quoting action movies. Their dynamic is magnetic, grounded in chemistry built over years of creative collaboration.

Reed and Strelec previously played siblings in the indie short That’s Just Rocks, and the bond carries forward here. Their bickering feels lived-in, their timing sharp, and their shared delusion of being on the brink of cracking a town-wide conspiracy is both hilarious and endearing. There’s a sweetness underneath the strange.

And strangely, the limitations are what give the show its energy. The found-footage format doesn’t just inform the story — it made the production possible.

“Making it VHS-style meant we could do everything ourselves,” says Strelec. “I could be the writer, director, actor, editor, and still not worry about polish. That’s part of the charm. If it looks too good, it breaks the illusion.”

Each episode blends a new genre into the mystery — zombies in Episode 2, alien body-swapping in Episode 3, political paranoia in the upcoming Episode 4. But the core of the show never wavers: it’s two weirdos documenting their lives with total conviction, accidentally making something that might be bigger than they realize.

Episodes are short (under 20 minutes), released on YouTube twice a week — Tuesdays and Fridays — with additional behind-the-scenes “Inside the Episode” segments following each release. The production is zero-budget, but never low-effort. There’s love in every frame, even when it’s smeared in static.

Like the best found footage, I Got Them Pegged isn’t trying to be perfect. It’s trying to be real. Or at least, real in the way your childhood brain believed it all was when you pointed a camera at something strange and said, “Roll it.”

New episodes drop every Tuesday and Friday at YouTube.com/@igotthempegged.

Just don’t be surprised if, three episodes in, you start to wonder whether you rented this show… or found it."

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ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE CHUMS THE WATER FOR ‘GREAT BITES’ SUMMER-LONG SHARK CELEBRATION: "From the shores of Lake Travis to the beaches of Martha’s Vineyard, this summer the iconic dine-in theater company Alamo Drafthouse Cinema will launch Great Bites, a season-long celebration of creature cinema.

Naturally, it kicks off with 50th anniversary celebrations of the one that started it all, Steven Spielberg’s iconic Jaws. Events include Alamo Drafthouse’s fan favorite Movie Parties, the return of the fan-favorite Jaws on the Water event, and a once-in-a-lifetime Rolling Roadshow screening in Martha’s Vineyard with live orchestral accompaniment

But the Great Bites fun goes even deeper than that, with an exclusive screening of IFC Films and Shudder’s shark horror thriller DANGEROUS ANIMALS - screening for the first time on the water ahead of its nationwide theatrical release on June 6th. Additionally, there will be a curated repertory series highlighting the gnarliest creatures from the depths of cinema history.

“Whether you're floating on the water, sitting in a theater, or standing on the very shores of the filming location of Amity Island from Jaws, we’re creating unforgettable experiences for fans all summer long,” said Michael Kustermann, CEO of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

The Jaws Movie Party and Jaws on the Water in Texas are both presented by the Texas Lottery in celebration of its Jaws-inspired scratch ticket, available June 2 at local Texas Lottery® retailers."

Jaws on the Water

June 7th and 21st, July 12th and 26th at Volente Beach Resort and Waterpark in Leander, TX