Fantastic Fest 2026 Review: COMPLIANCE is an Uncomfortable Found Footage Conspiracy Thriller

Give me a divisive film over a safe, 3-stars-across-the-board title any day. At Fantastic Fest this year, that movie is Compliance. 

A quick gander at Letterboxd shows my mutuals in two camps—either the 1-star, erase-it-from-my-memory lows, or 5-star gushes that deem it a modern classic. Kyle Mangione-Smith’s surveillance-state, Anonymous-like slice of found footage and Screenlife techno-horror is a feel-bad gauntlet that made me want to stab my eardrums with knitting needles at points. I get why this won’t be for everyone, and yet the nightmares persist. What starts as a seedy corporate thriller becomes a full-blown conspiracy exploitation mystery—society at its worst, on repeat.

Megan Wilcox stars as Sam, a company relations representative for UVisit: a “tech startup and homestay hotel brand” (the next Airbnb). Her latest case involves a reported rape at one of their hosted properties, as she clashes with UVisit co-founder Harry (Charlie Wood) over the delicateness of the situation. Sam sees a person, bruised and broken; Harry sees a liability that could sink acquisition plans. But Sam’s investigation is only the first domino to fall after she drunkenly discovers a micro-camera in her apartment and is contacted by an unknown number.

Compliance has a little bit of everything in terms of conspiracy themes. What starts as the lawlessness of capitalist hellscapes—UVisit’s NDAs and buried incidents—spins out of control. Everything from Dark Web pay-to-kill setups, shadow overlords, political podcast plants, and a blurry-profiled figure known as “Master” tugging invisible strings. As Letterboxd user Lowell Greenblatt notes, “What hath “Bugonia” wrought?” I find more value in Compliance not as satire, but as a legitimately terrifying acknowledgment of how technology is being exploited / manipulated by villains masquerading as disruptors.

That’s not to say Mangione-Smith knows something we don’t; Compliance is fiction. It’s dangerous fiction, at that, which pushes hard into sexual assault territory that requires trigger warnings. Anyone who doesn't want to participate in the wretched weaponization of atrocious acts should not. It’s a bleakly cynical experience that indulges bad-faith talking points as a method of extreme commentary, including footage of mass shootings and beyond. Whatever negative associations the internet has with America’s moral decay bubble forth in Complicance; Mangione-Smith wants you to feel uncomfortable and unsafe in a world where companies can track your every swipe, click, and cookie. Sometimes, to a detriment.

And yet, the found footage / Screenlife elements of stalking Sam are compelling. Skilled hackers can access screens or lenses: Sam’s laptop, police body cameras, livestream feeds, the aforementioned spy and security cameras. Viewpoints oscillate to disorient viewers—everything is watching us. As Sam’s paranoia heightens, so does her awareness of Big Brother’s infinite eyes. We make jokes about the footage NSA agents must have on all of us from our laptop cameras alone, but how funny is that really? Mangione-Smith takes that idea and extrapolates into a despicably brainrotted horror show of relatable everyday occurrences.

The film picks up where titles like The Den or Unfriended: Dark Web leave off. There’s nothing supernatural about the suited Agent Smith lookalike (from the head down) speaking from anonymity. Anyone with the funding, network, and disciples could pull off what’s laid out in Compliance. But what’s scariest is how Mangione-Smith depicts how simple it is for nameless entities to push and command narratives that become the mantra of entire movements. Every instance I tried to convince myself Compliance went too far, I thought about what pundits spew on Fox News, or hordes of followers supporting Andrew Tate, or political assassinations that look staged in professional opinions. For as far-fetched as Sam’s interactions with pseudo-Suicide Girls, Lindsey Normington’s untrusting victim, and Master’s ability to operate without interference appear, I’m reminded how Deepfake porn exists, or Elon Musk’s dismantling of Twitter into a right-wing echo chamber. 

Mangione-Smith despises what America has become, holding up a mirror and begging the audience to pay closer attention to … everything? (Although the audience that needs to see this most probably never will, nor would they acknowledge anything beyond farcical bias.)

That said, Compliance is rough around all edges. It’s all very low-budget, reaching for big concepts with empty rooms for rent and handheld cinematography. Wilcox is a strong lead who rolls with the madness like a shaken and unwilling puppet, but interactions can feel Max Headroom-y in an overly manufactured way. The sound design is also appalling in parts, which is the intention—to induce an ear-plugging psychosis—but it's also fairly agitating as a viewer. Then there are supporting actors playing newscasters and on-camera talkers who flatly read their lines, cosplaying primetime anchors without the appeal. A real do-what-you-can effort that never outshines its means, but given the concept, makes atmospheric sense.

You might loathe Compliance. You also might love it. Strangely enough, I’m somewhere in the middle. Mangione-Smith has created something conversation-worthy nonetheless: a damning simulation of American fears coming to light and tearing us apart. Late-stage capitalism has turned us into monsters, as stock valuations and profitable margins have replaced even the facade that any company holds the public’s best interests at heart. Compliance is cruel, crude, and will be unwatchable to some, but I found enough rebellion in its repugnance to wade through even the murkiest of its themes.

Movie Score: 3/5