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.
Currently playing on the festival circuit.
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
FESTIVALS/SCREENINGS
Halloweenapalooza Film Festival - Official Selection - Ottumwa, Iowa - October 9-10, 2026
The Thing in the Basement Film Festival - Official Selection - Seattle, Washington - October 17-18, 2026
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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