Fantastic Fest 25: “APPOFENIACS” is a Deepfake Nightmare
There used to be a time when pictures and videos were uncompromising fact. The phrase “pics or it didn’t happen” was a common refrain in the 2010s. Now, however, with the rise of artificial intelligence, people are simultaneously more wary of images and videos, yet ready to believe anything they see. Media literacy is a lost skill, and this inability to distinguish fact from fiction is at the center of Chris Marrs Piliero’s film, APPOFENIACS. The film, which had its world premiere at the 2025 Fantastic Fest, marks Marrs Piliero’s feature film debut. With a career in music videos, Marrs Piliero understands pace, suspense, and captivating, bloody visuals.
APPOFENIACS is a series of vignettes of various people living in Los Angeles. What connects them all is a guy, Duke (Aaron Holiday), who’s obsessed with the current state of technology. When we first meet him, he frantically pokes at his phone, saying it’s more powerful than the computers that took astronauts to the moon in the ’60s and everyone has one just sitting in their pocket. In particular, Duke is obsessed with deepfakes, videos made by AI that essentially give the creator the power to make anyone in the world say and do anything. Duke uses this to wreak havoc on those he believes have wronged him.
courtesy of APPOFENIACS
The film’s title comes from apophenia, which is described at the start of the film as “the tendency to perceive connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things.” Humans are designed to create order out of chaos. We need to understand the world around us, but the cruel joke of humanity is that often there is no answer. Sometimes people are angry at you not because of anything you’ve done, but because of other things that happened earlier in the day. Yet you receive the brunt of their anger. That’s the essence of APPOFENIACS. To borrow from the killers in The Strangers, it’s “because you were home.” The same can be said for APPOFENIACS. Duke’s anger isn’t directed at these people, not really. He doesn’t know them, but they don’t act the way he wants them to. He uses deepfake technology because he knows the power of a viral video clip. The technology’s out there and people can use it, so why shouldn’t Duke?
The first thirty minutes of APPOFENIACS are a wild ride. It starts with a murder, then cuts to a flirty Uber ride, before descending into utter madness. On paper it doesn’t make sense, yet each escalation feels natural. It’s a roller coaster and the movie has barely begun. From there, APPOFENIACS builds to a bloody conclusion. Marrs Piliero has a firm grasp on where he wants APPOFENIACS to end up and how he wants it to get there. If you weren’t terrified of a looming future where deepfakes become more prevalent, APPOFENIACS will make you second guess every video you come across on the internet now. With strong, funny performances by genre favorites like Sean Gunn and Jermaine Fowler, APPOFENIACS comes from a place of loving Tarantino, but with a new, fun dimensionality.
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