American indie filmmaker Aaron Fradkin explores haunted house horror with his latest feature, Beezel.
Set in a New England home, the film unfolds over several decades, employing an anthology structure to reveal a series of eerie encounters with supernatural forces and a malevolent entity. Fradkin builds a story within the claustrophobic confines of the family house, opting for a restrained approach that prioritizes suspense over spectacle in a low budget effort.
Fradkin’s commitment to horror storytelling is apparent in his approach to Beezel, which channels his affinity for intimate, character-centric narratives while exploring themes of psychological unease. His co-founder and wife, Victoria Fratz Fradkin, who co-wrote and stars in the film, brings a personal dimension to the production, deepening the connection between the filmmaking duo’s creative vision and their chosen genre.
Through Social House Films, Fradkin has crafted a distinctive style that often fuses the supernatural with human vulnerability, as seen in popular shorts like The Ballerina and previous features Val and Electric Love. In Beezel, he extends this sensibility to the cursed house setting, unfolding the narrative with a carefully paced, slow-burn dread that evokes a lingering tension rather than overt horror.
The film begins with a harrowing scene in which a child falls victim to the witch lurking in the depths of the house. Soon after, the child’s father, Rob (Bob Gallagher), contacts Apollo (LeJon Woods), a young cameraman, to document his story.
Accused of killing his wife and child, Rob is unexpectedly forthcoming and eager to recount his version of the events—a level of enthusiasm that feels out of place for someone grappling with such a personal tragedy. As the filming progresses, Apollo’s detachment gradually dissipates as he encounters the unsettling reality behind Rob's words, discovering firsthand the disturbing details of the events he was meant to document.
The film spans four distinct time periods—1966, 1987, 2003, and 2013—as successive occupants encounter the house’s curse. Each era introduces a new set of characters who, despite their varied circumstances, face the same malevolent force in unique manifestations.
The recurring figure of the immortal witch, with her insatiable need to consume human souls, adds a thread of continuity that underscores the cyclical nature of the house’s horrors. This motif of an ever-present curse could be interpreted as an allegory for generational trauma, suggesting the weight and inescapability of inherited burdens that linger across time.
Beezel brings together classic horror elements reminiscent of Evil Dead, with a focus on practical effects, and blends them with the found footage style popularized by The Blair Witch Project and the post-modern approach of the V/H/S franchise. This combination results in a layered horror experience that extends beyond its episodic structure.
In the first segment, Fradkin employs a true-crime narrative, framing Rob with an unsettling resemblance to real-life figures like Jeffrey Dahmer, evoking the disturbing aura of a serial killer. This approach establishes a gritty realism that grounds the supernatural events that follow.
The second episode shifts in tone, centering around a lone survivor from the initial events and adopting an exorcism motif, which incorporates supernatural horror and elements of monster and gore genres. Here, Fradkin interweaves traditional horror tropes with unsettling effects, enhancing the narrative’s visceral impact.
The final segment builds on the second episode’s themes of possession but takes a psychological turn, utilizing an unreliable narrator whose experience blurs the line between the supernatural and psychological afflictions like psychosis or dissociative identity disorder. Throughout, Fradkin consistently employs the found footage style and genre conventions, amplifying the sense of disorientation and blurring the boundary between recorded reality and distorted perception of reality.
Fradkin blends horror subgenres in Beezel, drawing on the gritty, suspense-driven style of 70s and 80s horror while catering to contemporary audiences with a preference for episodic, intense viewing. For the most part, the film balances its subgenre influences—ranging from supernatural and psychological horror to urban legend—but occasionally loses clarity as it shifts between grounded horror and explicit supernatural elements. The psychological tension is at times overshadowed by the overt depiction of the witch, an approach that contrasts with the film’s underlying tone of urban myth, reminiscent of The Amityville Horror, which leans closer to true crime than supernatural horror.
At its core, Beezel taps into the occult narratives of the Satanic Panic era, presenting the witch as an ageless figure whose dark influence extends over the house’s inhabitants across generations. This concept of an immortal witch enslaving each successive occupant for decades offers an unsettling glimpse into the enduring nature of fear rooted in folklore and mythology, grounding Beezel as a postmodern horror with nods to its genre’s legacy.
Beezel is a single-location film that hints at psychogeography, using the house’s setting to evoke an underlying sense of dread; however, Fradkin prioritizes visceral horror over an exploration of place. The film aligns with traditional horror values, emphasizing scares, gore, and kills while incorporating the found footage aesthetics.
Rather than delving deeply into character development or expanding the witch’s mythos, Beezel leans into a more plot-driven narrative structure, crafted to cater to audiences with a preference for shorter attention spans. This approach delivers a haunted house experience that maintains suspense but leaves the finer details of its supernatural elements and character arcs largely unexplored.