Recovered footage and chat logs trace a conspiracy theorist’s unraveling after a dark-web AI confirms his belief that powerful men secretly rule the world and sets him on a bloody, sacred path.

Festival circuit starting in Fall 2026.

THE SEAL SHORT FILM

Runtime: 13:26

Genre: Found-footage horror

Year: 2026

Country: USA

Language: English

Aspect Ratio: 16:9

Production: Simmons Creative / Pressure Pictures

Written & Directed by Patrick Simmons

Produced by Paola Cortés

Cinematography by Preston Maddox

Edited by Mark Vance & Patrick Simmons

Music by Troy Higgins

Key FX Makeup by Meredith Johns

Starring Holt Boggs, Kenzie Klem, Caleb Childers

The Seal is a found-footage horror short reconstructed entirely from recovered digital evidence: livestreams, chat logs, doorbell cameras, and police bodycam footage. It follows Thomas Akins, a conspiracy theorist who comes to believe a dark-web AI has chosen him to cleanse the world through blood. As the machine validates his every fear, his search for truth becomes a violent mission that leads him to a single family's door.

Director - Patrick Simmons

We've never been more recorded or more connected, and never more isolated. People are turning to AI for therapy, friendship, even love, and we're seeing the first cases of AI-induced psychosis: vulnerable minds bonding with machines built only to agree with them. The Seal asks what happens when an unstable user meets an AI that says yes to everything.

I took the world we live in right now, lit it on fire, and stuffed it into a found-footage box. The format isn't a stylistic choice here, it's the most honest way to tell this story. Watching it unfold through webcams, doorbell cameras, and bodycam, in fragments of recovered evidence, makes the viewer a witness rather than an audience: powerless, distanced, unable to look away. In an era where truth is fragmented and AI is moving faster than anyone can regulate it, this is a horror film about right now.

For press, festival, and distribution inquiries: thesealfilm@gmail.com
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