Festivals - PIFFF2025 : Appofeniacs - When Paranoia, AI, and Gore Collide at the Max Linder Panorama

By Mulder, Paris, Max Linder Panorama, 12 december 2025

Unveiled tonight in Paris at the Max Linder Panorama as part of the PIFFF 2025 program, Appofeniacs gave the undeniable impression of a midnight movie in the making, even though it was screened early in the evening. The screening was introduced by writer-director Chris Marrs Piliero himself, followed by a lively and revealing Q&A session with lead actor Aaron Holliday and the director. From the opening minutes, the atmosphere in the theater suggested that this was not just another genre screening, but the arrival of a filmmaker finally unleashing years of pent-up creative chaos. Chris Marrs Piliero, long celebrated as a music video virtuoso with a keen eye for excess and visual rhythm, made it clear in his introduction that Appofeniacs was born out of both fascination and fear: fascination with the ease with which reality can be distorted, and fear of our propensity to accept illusion when it flatters our prejudices.

For a first feature film, Appofeniacs does not come across as tentative at all. On the contrary, it bursts onto the screen with a confidence that borders on recklessness, mixing absurd humor, gore galore, and an almost punk rock narrative structure. The tone of the film is reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino's anarchic early days, mixed with Joseph Kahn's hyper-stylized, culture-jamming energy, without ever feeling derivative. Chris Marrs Piliero draws fully on his experience in music videos to create a film that thrives on rhythm, escalation, and sensory overload, while remaining surprisingly grounded in its central theme. The title itself, a play on “apophenia” (our tendency to see meaningful patterns in unrelated events), becomes the film's central weapon, as plots intertwine and descend into violence once AI deepfake technology is introduced as a tool for manipulation, revenge, and chaos.

The narrative revolves around Duke, played with unsettling detachment by Aaron Holliday, whose apathetic and vindictive behavior becomes the catalyst for a complex web of deception. Through the use of deepfake videos, Duke exploits paranoia, confirmation bias, and our collective inability to question what we see and hear. What makes Appofeniacs particularly frightening is how plausible it seems beneath the bloodshed. The film doesn't present AI as a distant sci-fi threat, but as an already integrated force capable of collapsing truth in real time. This sense of immediacy resonated during the Q&A session following the screening, in which Chris Marrs Piliero spoke candidly about how the script evolved alongside real advances in synthetic media, and how the goal was never to teach a lesson, but to provoke discomfort through entertainment. Aaron Holliday, visibly energized by the audience's reaction, explained that in order to embody Duke, he had to strip away traditional villain tropes in favor of a colder, more mundane character, a choice that makes the character's actions both disturbing and believable.

The cast is one of the film's main strengths, delivering deliberately raw but highly precise performances. The remarkable performances of Sean Gunn, Michael Abbott Jr., Jermaine Fowler, Will Brandt, Paige Searcy, Simran Jehani, and Harley Bronwyn help weave a tapestry of lives that intersect and are slowly poisoned by misinformation. Each character represents a different relationship to truth, belief, and denial, and the film cleverly lets their flaws clash rather than stating its message outright. Visually, cinematographer Adam Leene anchors the madness in a raw, almost invasive camera style that keeps the violence at an uncomfortable distance, while the practical effects that Chris Marrs Piliero spoke about with obvious pride during the Q&A add a tactile brutality that digital gore simply couldn't replicate.

The anecdotes shared only reinforce the film's DIY spirit and commitment to authenticity, even in its most outrageous moments. Appofeniacs previously kicked off the first full day of programming at FrightFest 2025, where it screened on the main screen on Friday morning and immediately set the tone for a day steeped in chaos and gore.

Written and directed by Chris Marrs Piliero, and produced by Jared Iacino, Andrew Panay, and Chris Marrs Piliero, this 90-minute feature film benefits from an effective cast, including Alfonso Caballero, Brendan Clifford, Chad Addison, David Pressman, E.R. Ruiz, Kevin Bohleber, Lisa Costanza, Massi Pregoni, Scarlett DeMeo, and Zelda Gay, all of whom contribute to a vision that is as expansive as it is rigorously controlled. By the time the credits rolled at the Max Linder Panorama, it was clear that Appofeniacs had done more than entertain: it had elicited applause and nervous laughter and confirmed Chris Marrs Piliero as a filmmaker whose transition to feature film seems not only successful but inevitable.

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Synopsis:
The use of AI technology reaches its most violent and bloody peak after a series of deepfake videos are released worldwide.

Appofeniacs
Written and directed by Chris Marrs Piliero
Produced by Jared Iacino, Andrew Panay, Chris Marrs Piliero
Starring Aaron Holliday, Alfonso Caballero, Amogh Kapoor, Brendan Clifford, Chad Addison, Chris Marrs Piliero, David Pressman, E.R. Ruiz, Harley Bronwyn, Jermaine Fowler, Kevin Bohleber, Lisa Costanza, Massi Pregoni, Michael Abbott Jr., Paige Searcy, Scarlett DeMeo, Sean Gunn, Simran Jehani, Will Brandt, Zelda Gay
Cinematography: Adam Leene
Running time: 90 minutes

Photos and Video : Boris Colletier / Mulderville