Brooklyn Horror 2026 Review: MOUNTAIN KING, A Different Kind of Family Movie

Hannah (Hannah Deale) chases her boyfriend, Gregor (Carter Sirianni), all the way to his home country of Sweden after refusing his marriage proposal and desperately trying to make amends.  When she follows him to his childhood home in the middle of the woods, Gregor is visibly shaken by her arrival.

When Gregor’s mother, Ingrid (Irina Malygina), and father, Vilhelm (Keoki Trask), arrive, Hannah immediately sets out to do her best to charm them: She’s willing to wear a scratchy sweater, go hunting, drink disgusting liquors, and share silly campfire stories. Her genuine enthusiasm wins the parents over, but as the night progresses, Hannah starts suspecting that this might not be such a great thing after all.

Mounting King is a first feature directed by Gabrielle Christensen, and as far as debuts go, this one not only delivers but also promises interesting things for the future. Aptly described as a “horror-flavored Meet the Parents” in the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival program, the film does come off as a holiday comedy about a newcomer disrupting already troubled family dynamics for much of its runtime. Setting aside a brief prologue where a group of young people meets a grim fate in the same woods, much of the stuff that happens during this awkward family reunion feels painfully familiar.

Gregor has been away from home and hasn’t seen his parents for the last ten years, and he acts in a way that makes it clear that he wishes to distance himself from their ways and seems to be embarrassed by their eccentricities. Hannah is a great and relatable protagonist for this type of story, with her ADHD, her zeal, and her generally positive attitude towards pretty much any weird occurrence thrown her way. At the same time, the authors manage to weave in tension organically in this more or less romcom narrative, even while nothing outright terrible happens.

There are the constant side-eye glances and noticeable omissions that are ambiguous enough to possibly mean that this is just your garden-variety messed-up family, or that this story might be one step away from going full Midsommar or The Wicker Man. What the authors might not have in terms of a budget, they more than compensate for with creative use of the ever-reliable Scandinavian landscape and the general sense of discomfort that culminates in a gloriously unhinged dinner scene,  which might remind more than a few viewers of the unfortunate family reunions they personally experienced.

While the revelations that happen near the end aren’t all that surprising (nor are they truly meant to be), it serves Mountain King well that even after the blood is spilled and the horror really kicks off, it still works as a parable for the inner workings of a dysfunctional family. With this darkly charming debut, Gabrielle Christensen not only puts her name on the genre map but also manages to send a reassuring message to everyone who might be worried about their potential in-laws not liking them – sometimes you’re better off if they don’t.

The film screened at the 2026 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.