Find Your Friends Review [Fantastic Fest 2025]

A bold, unsettling film that subverts genre tropes, Find Your Friends is a visceral, unforgettable viewing experience and a very difficult watch.

Find Your Friends is a difficult watch, which is potentially the whole point, but because of this it will alienate a lot of its audience. That said, surely some will enjoy it. Writer/director Izabel Pakzad’s first feature is a blend of a hangout flick and a brutal revenge thriller, inviting viewers to a party that, much like its characters, quickly takes a turn for the unsettling.

It follows group of friends – played by Helena Howard, Bella Thorne, Zión Moreno, Chloe Cherry, and Sophia Ali – who decide to escape Los Angeles for a weekend in Joshua Tree. While the thriller aspects of it actually work, that is about the only thing that does.

On the surface, the film’s premise feels familiar: a group of young people seeking a wild escape in an isolated location. However, Pakzad’s approach feels refreshingly different, as it unapologetically portrays a group of young women engaging in behavior often reserved for their male counterparts in cinema. They are loud, messy, and hedonistic, a refreshing departure from the usual archetypes of women in horror.

Despite this different approach, the film is a deeply difficult watch. This is primarily due to a profoundly unsettling assault at the start of the film (trigger warning) that is very hard to get past. This scene isn’t just an event; it’s a wound that lingers, making it incredibly difficult to settle into the carefree party atmosphere the film initially presents.

The director’s intimate, almost voyeuristic camera work puts the viewer uncomfortably close to the characters, and in doing so, it also forces them to confront the film’s darkest moments without distance. From that point on, a sense of deep-seated discomfort looms over every scene.

The horror isn’t just about jump scares; it’s a visceral, emotional reaction to a feeling that something is fundamentally wrong. This discomfort is the true engine of the film’s suspense, which escalates from the unsettling visit from the neighbor to a full-blown descent into a revenge thriller. While I wanted to enjoy every aspect of Find Your Friends, I found myself uncomfortable and uneasy throughout the majority of it.

In the end, Find Your Friends is a stylistically exciting and incredibly distinct film, but it is by no means an easy watch. It’s a film that succeeds in its intentions of making you feel uncomfortable – a testament to Pakzad’s direction and the cast’s raw performances.

Find Your Friends is certainly not for everyone, and I honestly have a hard time recommending it. There is an intriguing and interesting story in there somewhere, but it is hard to find within this muddled, multi-genred film. Still, I can appreciate what it was trying to do, even if I did not enjoy it.

About Find Your Friends

A group of girlfriends decide to escape LA, heading out to Joshua Tree for a weekend full of DJ sets, drugs, and hookups. Dead set on enjoying themselves, the women settle into their Airbnb and get the party started right away, but an ominous visit from a redneck neighbor immediately sets the tone: they aren’t welcome here, and they need to watch how they behave.

Like a Gen Z THE HILLS HAVE EYES by way of Harmony Korine, writer/director Izabel Pakzad’s exciting first feature has an incredibly distinct voice and style. Part hangout flick, part revenge thriller, Pakzad’s intimate filmmaking style invites you into the girl group immediately, taking you along for the terrifying ride.

Find Your Friends played at Fantastic Fest 2025.

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