The beauty of attending a midnight screening at a film festival lies in the thrill of unpredictability. Sitting in a dark theater, your brain slightly melting, wondering what exactly you just watched.

Peter Vack’s latest midnight oddity, http://www.rachelormont.com, perfectly captures a specific cinematic chaos, dragging you down a psychedelic rabbit hole that’s part meme compilation, part dystopian fever dream.

Describing the movie feels borderline impossible without sounding like I’ve lost my mind, but let’s try anyway: Rachel Ormont (a fearless Betsey Brown) spends her entire life trapped inside a room, endlessly evaluating a pop icon called Mommy 6.0 (a mesmerizing Chloe Cherry). Her entire grasp of reality is limited to what she sees through her screen. Everything flat, digital, hyper-stylized. But when Rachel starts sensing a world beyond her confined digital cell, things go off the rails and then the rails themselves disintegrate.

Vack assaults the senses with a hyperkinetic aesthetic borrowed straight from the most unsettling corners of TikTok and YouTube “brain rot” meme culture. Oversaturated colors, aggressive jump cuts, and unrelenting energy. It’s manic, abrasive, intentionally offensive, and deeply weird. The movie pushes buttons seemingly as a core philosophy, dissecting themes of digital obsession, commodification, and twisted hero worship with a gleeful viciousness. It’s as funny and brave as it is off-putting and gross.

At the heart of this insanity is Betsey Brown, whose performance as Rachel is nothing short of astonishing. She dives headfirst into a role that’s unlike anything else out there. Brown gives it everything she’s got, crafting something so unique, hypnotic, and bizarre it’s hard to imagine anyone else pulling it off, or even wanting to try. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea (actually, it’ll probably repel a fair number of viewers) but for those willing to engage with its madness, the rewards are surprisingly plentiful.

I still can’t say if I genuinely liked it or not, but I appreciate its audacity and sheer uniqueness. It’s a midnight movie through and through: messy, exhilarating, offensive, and uncompromisingly strange. Films like http://www.rachelormont.com are exactly why festivals exist: to remind you cinema still has the power to surprise, confound, and provoke at ungodly hours.

This review is part of our ongoing coverage of the 2025 Florida Film Festival.