One Star Classics : Descendent

Descendent

Oct 03, 2025 / Mind Benders

Another year and another movie from another Justin Benson/Aaron Moorhead acolyte. This time it’s Peter Cilella’s turn, with his UFO-abduction(-maybe) film, Descendent. While not quite up there with last year’s Things Will Be Different (from Benson/Moorhead collaborator, Michael Felker), it does a good job at balancing semi-surreal images with conventional family drama. If Benson/Moorhead is its own genre – and, at this point, I think it is – Descendent fits squarely into it.

The film follows Sean (Ross Marquand), whose partner, Andrea (Sarah Bolger), is pregnant with their first child. Sean is stuck in a dead-end job as a school security guard, one he holds onto in the hope that it will become a stepping stone into the lucrative private security market. One night, after being called to check on a broken alarm in the middle of a rainstorm, Sean climbs onto the school’s roof to fix a flickering light. As the lightning strikes around him, an irregularly moving shiny object appears, and everything flashes white. Two days later, Sean finds himself in a hospital bed, with no memory of what happened, other than fleeting glimpses of his own UFO abduction. Or, is his psyche playing a trick on him?

If you’re familiar with any Benson/Moorhead movies (and it should be mentioned that the duo serves as producers here), it’ll come as little surprise that Descendent is a weird watch – and, not in a bad way. After the incident, Sean finds himself with newfound artistic abilities and begins drawing images that seem to appear randomly to him. On top of that, he sees fleeting visions of himself as a severely troubled mental patient and a therapist who tries to figure out what his drawings mean. Even more bizarre, when Sean finally decides to see a therapist in real life, it is the same woman he had seen in his visions. Or are his visions actually reality?

Needless to say, none of this plays out well with Andrea, who loses a valuable partner in the second half of her pregnancy.

I could dive deeper into the plot, but, frankly, there is a lot going on in what is a slow-moving ninety-minute movie. If I were to guess what Descendent really is about, I presume it’s the fear of fatherhood. Sean had a traumatic childhood, with his mother dying at a young age and his father committing suicide not long after. Sean’s feelings of abandonment sit at the core of a man who is intently obsessed with protecting his family. The overarching question is whether what’s going on with him is a result of alien experiments or a side-effect of his fall.

Descendent is, like most Benson/Moorhead movies, an acquired taste. You don’t have to dig far into reviews to find viewers who expected a more straightforward UFO-abduction horror, and were flummoxed when they got an existential thriller. Turning Descendent on solely for Halloween-night scares is probably not a great idea. If, however, you want to feel uncomfortably lowkey creeped out, then there are plenty of things to like.

This is Peter Cilella’s directorial debut – before Descendent, he was mainly an actor who appeared in a couple of Benson/Moorhead movies. He’s generally a talented performer, and, not surprisingly, does a good job working with Descendent’s cast. All the actors deliver solid performances. Visually, too, the film looks good, utilizing grayed, washed-out colors that appropriately reflect Sean’s mindset. It might not look overly exciting, but that is largely by design. The music, too, underscores the mood of the story – a good mix of the forlorn and the eerie.

I will say that even though I do like a slow churn, it probably wouldn’t have hurt to chop off ten or so minutes to improve the flow. Things get a little stuck in the mud when we approach the climax. And, while I don’t think the ending is unsatisfying, it does feel like a couple of plot threads weren’t fully completed. That’s not to say I want everything tidied up, but some things are needlessly left hanging.

Still, Descendent is a movie that deserves a second – and even third – watch. It might not be for everyone, but if you’re into a good mindbender, then it certainly is worth your time.

Descendent is currently available on VOD.

By Remi, Oct 03, 2025

Letterboxd summary: After a traumatic brain injury triggers terrifying visions of extraterrestrials and a newfound talent for drawing, a father-to-be begins to question his reality and becomes obsessed with the need to protect his family from an unseen threat.