This week on Indie Film Weekly, Glen Reynolds highlights five indie films worth knowing about: three in theaters, one on demand, and one classic.
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Welcome back to Indie Film Weekly for the week of August 28th, 2026. I'm your host, Glenn Reynolds. This week in theaters, we've got a dark comedy slasher about a beloved children's TV unicorn who may not be as wholesome as advertised. We've got two very bad drivers, one wealthy teen and a rehab trip that spirals into crime. We've got a Joe Swanberg relationship drama about love, timing Alaska, and the lives people imagine for themselves. Quick ask before we move on. If you can see one of these films in a theater this weekend, indie films need early ticket buyers. I meant to see that after the final showtime disappears. On demand, I've got an Australian horror thriller where a beach house celebration turns into a blood-soaked survival night. And for our classic, we're celebrating Paul Thomas Anderson's first feature, a 30th anniversary crime drama where the real action is not the gambling, but the loneliness around it. Want the written version of these picks each week? I also published the indie film weekly newsletter. It's the same five films in a quick read. Sign up at newsletter.circusroadfilms.com. Let's dive in. Our first indie film in theaters this week is Buddy, directed by Casper Kelly. This is a dark comedy slasher built around a 1990s children's television show and its bright orange unicorn host. Buddy once taught kids lessons about kindness, sharing, feelings, and all the other things that usually come with puppets, songs, and suspiciously cheerful sets. Then the movie asks a very fair question. What if the thing designed to comfort children was actually terrifying? Christian Miliotti stars as Grace, a mother drawn into the nightmare surrounding the show, while Tover Grace plays her husband, and Keegan Michael Key provides the voice of Buddy. Kelly is the filmmaker behind Too Many Cooks, so this is not coming from someone with a normal relationship to television nostalgia. That is a takes the familiar shape of childhood programming, the colors, the songs, the big mascot smile, and turns it into something wrong. The hook is funny, but the reason it works is that children's TV already has a strange dream logic. Adults in costumes, rooms that do not obey reality, lessons repeated until they become chance, but he just pushes that weirdness into horror. If you grew up with soft plush characters telling you everything was okay, this may gently suggest that everything was not okay. Our second indie film in theaters this week is Idiots. Directed by Macon Blair, this comedy follows two rock bottom drivers hired to transport a wealthy teenage boy to rehab. That sounds like a simple job, which is usually the first warning sign in a movie like this. Dave Franco and O'Shea Jackson Jr. play the drivers, and Mason Thames plays the passenger, who very quickly turns the trip into something more dangerous, more illegal, and much less likely to be reimbursed. Premise gives Blair a great comic engine. Two men who are already not exactly winning at life are handed responsibility for someone else's crisis, and then everyone involved makes the road trip worse. It's a crime comedy built on bad judgment, class resentment, drugs, danger, and the special panic of realizing the job you accepted may be the thing that finally ruins you. Blair has a feel for losers who are not stupid so much as overwhelmed by consequences. That makes the title funny, but not necessarily cruel. These are people making idiotic choices, yes, but maybe also people who have run out of better ones. The cast helps sell the chaos. Franco can play Slippery Desperation. Jackson has great grounded comic force, and Thames gives the movie a teen passenger who's not just cargo, but the match tossed into the car. Our last indie film in theaters this week is The Sun Never Sets. Directed by Joe Swanberg, this relationship drama stars Dakota Fanning as Wendy, a woman who believes she is happy with Jack, played by Jake Johnson. Jack is older, divorced, and has children. And he wants them to take a break so Wendy can figure out whether she is really okay giving up on a marriage and children of her own. That break sends her back into the orbit of Chuck, played by Corey Michael Smith, an ex who reawakens a more spontaneous version of her life, and suddenly seems to want the future Jack cannot offer. So yes, it's a love triangle, but Swanberg's films are usually less interested in clean romantic math than the uncomfortable middle of decisions. This is about the life you have, the life you said you did not need, and the life that starts looking attractive the second someone asks you to be honest. The Alaska setting gives the movie a strong sense of place, but the real landscape is emotional. Winnie's not choosing between two fantasy versions of happiness. She's trying to understand what kind of compromise would become a life and what kind would become regret. Fanning is a strong fit for that tension because she can play restraint and restlessness at the same time. So in theaters this week, that's Buddy, Idiots, and The Sun Never Sets. Our spotlight indie film on demand this week is Penny Lane is Dead, written by Mia Kate Russell, this Australian dark comedy horror thriller, is set during a scorching summer in 1986. Penny Lane and her longtime girlfriends head to a beach house to celebrate Penny getting into college, which should mean sun, music, bad decisions, and maybe a few emotional confessions before morning. Instead, a prank goes horribly wrong, and the night turns into a blood-soaked fight for survival. The film has an asploitation throwback energy, which means it's not trying to be polite, polished, or especially concerned with keeping the carpet clean. What gives it some kick is the mix of teenage friendship, queer longing, black humor, and sudden violence. A beach house party already has built-in danger because teenagers believe they are immortal and adults are usually absent for plot reasons. Here, that freedom curdles fast. Russell uses the period setting for more than nostalgia. The 1980s texture gives the movie heat, attitude, and a sense of being trapped in a world where help is not one phone tap away. It is a nasty little genre ride. But it also has the emotional charge of girls realizing that growing up may not be the scariest thing waiting for them. You can stream it on Shudder. Our indie film classic this week is Hard Eight, celebrating its 30th anniversary. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. This 1996 crime drama was his first feature before Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, and the whole PTA mythology took over. Philip Baker Hall plays Sidney, an older gambler who finds John, played by John C. Riley, broke and stranded outside a diner near Reno. Sidney takes him under his wing, teaches him how to survive around casinos, and slowly becomes something between mentor, father figure, and mystery. When Paultroe plays a person sex worker who becomes part of John's life, while Samuel L. Jackson brings danger into the picture as Jimmy. The plot has crime elements, but the movie's power is the mood. Quiet rooms, bad carpets, casino light, people speaking carefully because everyone is hiding something. It's a small film. You can already see Anderson's gifts, the patience with actors, the eye for damaged people, the sense that one conversation at a table can carry more weight than a shootout. Philip Baker Hall is magnificent because Sidney's kindness never feels simple. It may be grace, it may be guilt, it may be strategy. The movie keeps that tension alive. Heart 8 is modest compared with Anderson's later work, but that's part of the beauty. It is the firsthand, and he already knows how to play it. You can watch it on Amazon Prime. And that wraps it for the August 28, 2026 edition of Indie Film Weekly. If you want to support the show, do the simple stuff. Subscribe so you don't miss next week. Share it with one friend who likes being early. Rate it because it helps the apps take the show seriously. Then leave a quick review, even one sentence helps. Until next week, keep it strange, keep it sharp, and keep it indie.
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