SXSW 2026 Review: MONITOR Gives Us a Digital Demon to Fear

On the internet, there's a profession no one should envy: content moderation. Curated algorithms and protected platforms provide a facade of safety, but it’s these moderators, lost souls on the frontlines of moral obligation, keeping our feeds clean(ish). Filmmakers Matt Black and Ryan Polly tap into the horrors endured by underpaid workers who must sift through flagged video clips for the sake of social media users in their disturbing feature debut, Monitor. It's A Nightmare on YouTube Street, unleashing a digital demon à la The Ring in a Creepypasta-esque, better-than-The-Slender-Man take on screen-locked haunts that permeate the living world. 

That's… a good thing.

Brittany O'Grady stars as Maggie, an employee of "Moderation Services," a company that's contracted to scrub websites of dangerous content. Every day, Maggie takes an elevator to a poorly lit office where dreams go to die. It's implied that her current profession is inspired by a tragedy connected to her sister, Victoria, which makes the torture worthwhile. But, as if clips of beheadings, dead dogs, and sexual crimes weren't enough, Maggie encounters a video that brings with it a terrifying curse—or so she claims.

Monitor isn't found footage, but it has a Butterfly Kisses quality to its approach (complimentary). The villain, this hooded, smiling, zombie-looking Tulpa that only appears on viewed screens, torments its victims like an urban legend sprung from a dare. Maggie watches this obscure submission, where a camera looks inward into an infinite monitor tunnel that brings forth the described grinning bastard. It's the kind of antagonist that takes a minute to crawl under your skin, but once there, claws and thrashes with the utmost discomfort. His tricks are familiar, hiding in plain sight via glitchy pixel clouds, but the film's execution is primo, with a fierceness to reality-bending attacks.

Black and Polly are confident creators, emphasizing a variety of ways their monster appears. It's simple at first, as Maggie's video calls are interrupted, or colleague Hazel (Camila Bejarano Wahlgren) has her livestream gaming session crashed. But Monitor pushes further, as Freddy Tuber appears on baby monitors with garden shears, in vehicle backup cameras, or as a figure in projector glare. Variety is the spice of life, and Monitor benefits from an inventive approach to cyber-stalker nightmares that avoids reusing setups. There's a confidence behind technological freakouts that keeps momentum throttling forward, which keeps scream-scares fresh, and tension on high alert.

O'Grady leads a cast of doomed 3rd-party watchdogs who not only fear for their lives, but indulge the skeevy practices of content moderators. Maggie clashes with Isaac (Taz Skylar) over reportability standards: Maggie wants to send deviant clips to the authorities, whereas Isaac prioritizes his company's anonymity and this online perception of privacy. Performances sell supernatural wretchedness with ease, like Ines Høysæter Asserson's Faye and her shadow-puppet standoff, but O'Grady shines in her role as the unbelieved "lunatic" who not only struggles to hold Moderation Services accountable—and the internet—but projects palpable paranoia.

However, Monitor struggles to establish concrete lore and flow briskly through more dramatic asides. There's plenty of torment and terribleness by way of Maggie's evildoer, but the film begs for more nastiness. That's both a testament to the violent threats and digi-doom at hand, and a commentary on what's lacking. For as competent an arbiter as O'Grady is for content safety, there's a willy-nilly-ness to the film's established rules. What's there works, and it'll make you squirm, but Black and Polly have a wee bit more trouble tying everything together. Themes are clear, but mythology is mixed. That makes us beg for more straightforward thrills.

Nonetheless, Monitor introduces a downright despicable Freddy Krueger for the app-addicted generation. It's a techno-horror terror that thoughtfully questions the ethics of content vetting corporations and worries about the well-being of hired scrubbers. Prepare to be scared, just don't expect a bulletproof presentation of the film's big bad. What works, works—and what doesn't is overshadowed by what does.

Movie Score: 3.5/5