The Smiling Man

A group of aspiring filmmakers interview three individuals who claim to be monsters. However, unique incidents start to occur when they start filming.

A doe-eyed knife-wielding killer is on the loose in a small town slicing and dicing men of questionable intent left and right. As her brutality leaves a town littered with corpses, her unquenchable blood-lust is lost on her young lover who is willing to pursue her regardless of the obvious warning signs of psychosis. Will he meet his end at the end of her blade? She decides who lives or dies!

Calvin is competing with five other actors for the lead in a major Hollywood movie. Stopping at nothing, he uses a demonic book of curses on the actors, each bringing to life a monster that kills in their own unique and terrifying way.

Robert, a budding actor with a lot to prove, is known around campus as the guy from the StarJuice commercials, but he'd rather earn some artistic cred with his original play, "Mystery Man." When a mysterious classmate with a dinosaur birthmark laughs at his in-class monologue, Robert and his friend Naldo are swept into an antic quest to achieve her approval. With a galaxy-hopping POV and kaleidoscopic aesthetic, Austin Coombs-Perez's feature debut channels the youthful urgency and try-anything energy of true indie originals..." - 50th Atlanta Film Festival, First Wave Announcement, March 9 2026.